As the end of the spring semester at NIU concluded it became more evident that this weekend would yield some opportunities to chase out west. It was a tough setup given the lack of an elevated mixed layer (
EML) and overnight convection. The lack of an EML allowed storms to initiate early in the day and prevent one storm to become dominate. Plus, the overnight convection really squashed large swaths of potential chase targets until sunset or later. Yet, prospects looked good enough to make the trip and gamble. We left DeKalb Friday afternoon bound for Topeka, KS where we overnighted. The next day our target was Garden City, KS. However, as we soon realized, a large mesoscale convective system (
MCS) was in our way. We made it to Garden City and slowly moseyed west toward better convergence and (relative...) moisture. Storms in extreme SW KS really couldn't get going and we had no shot at catching the tornado confirmed storm in Colorado. We waited on a few storms but they really looked "mushy" and struggled to do much of anything. So, we actually gave up on the day and headed toward Salina, KS where we were going to stay the night. As we were heading east towards Oakley, KS on highway 40 we notice that where was a boundary sinking down from the north. There were some beautiful cumulus, in a favorable shear environment, ahead of us as we pushed through (see the attached link to Walker's blog post and video). We hoped that the boundary could interact with a storm and maybe spin up a quick tornado. Sure enough, as we reached Oakley, KS and I-70, a storm crossing the boundary became tornado warned and a tornado was confirmed with it. We headed east on I-70 toward Grinnell, KS where we waited at the offramp for it. The frustrating part is that we needed to get south but couldn't because the muddy, non-paved roads. Finally, as we sat there in forward flank region with rain/small hail, visibility improved and we confirmed tight rotation. Sure enough, it began to produce what was a fairly long-lived tornado. As darkness began to creep in, two areas of rotation were present and it produced multiple tornadoes from these different rotation mesocyclones. Although we saw what was 5-6 tornadoes (some brief), it was a frustrating day at times.
Note: I did not get photos because I was driving, had wide-angle lens on, and it was low light. So, I have taken some of Walker's photos and put them on my blog. I encourage all of you to go to his blog for higher quality, more photos, and a different take on the event. His blog post can be found here --> HERE
Day two of our chase led us to extreme SE North Dakota/NW Iowa. Driving north out of Salina in the morning it was pretty apparent early on that it would be a long day given storms were firing by 10AM. In fact, there was a confirmed tornado near Mitchell, SD by late morning. We just raced north to get to a position where storms would have a chance to get organized. We arrived in far NW Iowa and everything just looked sloppy. It was not great. We waited around and saw some storms but by 5PM we decided to head back home as everything turned into a big mess. It just didn't look great. As we were on our way to Des Moines, a storm about 75 miles away from us produced a tornado that was highly visible. This was frustrating because the environmental ingredients were not great and one would have to have been lucky to get the tornado. It was one of those things....
We decided to head all the way home on Saturday. That was probably a mistake because we were all more tired than expected. Fortunately, we made it home safely. All in all, it was a rough chase for me. I have a tendency to like chases where the storm motion is slow and I can take my time to relax. Don't get me wrong, I like seeing storms and chasing regardless, but 2,200 miles in 3 days wasn't a great way for me to relax. I guess this is what I get for chasing an early May dynamic low instead of early/mid-June bowling ball lows. Maybe I'll get another chance in June to see my favorite slow moving supercells, spaceships and barber poles. I have a lot of dissertation work to knock out within the next few weeks so maybe mother nature will hold off on the storms. But watch, here come the most visually stunning storms of the year. Mark my words. One day this won't be an issue. I'll chase whenever I want.
ALL PHOTOS AND VIDEOS HEREIN ARE COPYRIGHTED BY WALKER ASHLEY (chubasco.niu.edu)
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