The Season That Never Ends...

Everytime we think the 2009 season will end it throws a curve now showing several systems coming over the next few weeks including a fairly deep west coast trough similar to an early June type of setup but that is for another post. I am really looking at this Friday at the moment! It appears we could see a potentially active severe weather event shaping up over C Kansas. Based on today's 12z NAM a weak but sufficient shortwave coupled with 20-30knt SE 850s and 3000+ j/kg of CAPE along a very sharp stationary/warm front boundary will create very favorable conditions for supercells and possible tornadoes not mention 0-3km SRH 350+ m2/s2 and 250+ m2/s2 at 0-1km. Dews should reach the low possibly mid 70s and temps will be in the upper 80/90s north of the boundary while it will be simmering close to 100 south of the boundary. This should be enough to punch through the cap, nice area of convergence also looks to setup along the US50 corridor from Hutchinson to Emporia allowing for initiation as well. With that said my main concern is the CAP however the NAM breaks out precip from Hutch into E KS and W MO. We will have family in town so it may be hard to get away but we will try if it appears the cap will be breakable.

Surprise Part II

Today I had a short but fun little chase. I left the house after noticing a very nice updraft and sharp anvil overspreading us to our west. I grabbed the cameras and keys and jumped in the car without my computer. I just used my eyes and I found a great road east of Spring Hill to sit and watch the developing supercell. It was somewhat high based that produced a weak wall cloud with little to no motion but had a nice tail cloud that was moving into the wall cloud fairly nicely. The terrible unidirectional shear profiles kept it from even spinning so I decided to just punch the core expecting maybe some strong winds for stock video. I was surprised to get some hail nothing major but I there were easily quarters but they were quite soft causing them to break when they hit the ground. The winds were pretty strong too I'd say 60-70MPH. It lasted several minutes before ending and I began to head home. I noticed the rain was intensifying again and I could see another updraft to my NW. This storm became severe warned too I later found out and it produced some very heavy rain that flooded the neighborhood a bit. I was home within an hour when I left. The last 7 days or so have been quite active over this area even a few tornadoes. Anyway here are some pictures.





This last pic I took was the night before as a shelf cloud advanced southward from a cluster of storms in NW MO.

Tornadoes in Nebraska Tomorrow...Again?

From what I am seeing it looks like a very good possibility based off of today's 12z NAM. It looks like a 999mb low will set up in C South Dakota as deep 70-75F+ dews advect northward over the C/N Plains. Very nice ESE surface winds under a 30-40knt S/SSE LLJ, and decent SW flow at 500mb will create the good directional and speed shear to get some very strong rotating supercells over N Nebraska into S South Dakota. A weak dryline or boundary will punch in from the S and W allowing for good forcing to initiate storms along the moisture axis that will be located from SC SD into NE NE, into W IA. CAPE will be on the strong side with 3500+ j/kg, and helicity will be over 400 m2/s2 at 0-3km which is great. All of this is also creating some very scary looking large hodographs especially in a Norfolk-O'Neill-Columbus triangle. We will likely be chasing if this verifies so be sure to stay tuned...

6/23/09 Lightning Pics

We had a few severe storms pop up yesterday evening one of which produced a damaging downburst near the Plaza in downtown KC. Anyway we had another one around sunset develop and spit out some lightning there were very little in the way of CG and since I didn't think it was worth a drive to my usual lightning photo spot most of the strikes I captured were obscured by trees. I also hadn't taken lightning photos in a while so some of my photos were overexposed.

6/20/09 Princeton, KS INSANE Structure

Here is a short video and timelapse of the incredible supercell from last night, it ranks up there with some of the best storm structure I have ever seen!

Surprise Tornado Today!

Though nothing spectacular by far I was able to intercept a brief tornado today on the Franklin/Miami county line. Though the tornado was 15 miles to my SW I was able to get good shots of it from sitting on a hill. It all started when I came in from the pool out back and we had seen the anvil overspreading us. I decided to check it out because I knew there were storms out west. I had seen an MD was issued 2 minutes earlier mentioning tornadoes along the warm front. I noticed a cell was riding the front just south of I35 near Beto Junction. I quickly grabbed the keys, cameras, and computer and jumped in the car. I blasted south of 169 and began heading west out of highway 68. I found out a tornado warning was issued for the storm and I was getting excited! I made my way south and west and south and west again heading up and down some tree filled hills. I finally found an open field on a large hill giving me a good view of the base however it was 15 miles away. I just decided to watch as a large truncated cone began to develop it tried to touch but it just kind of spun there until finally it started to needle down and touch briefly it stayed on the ground as the occlusion occured and the tornado became a nice rope before ending as a detached needle funnel and dissipating back in the core. While the tornado roped out a new meso began forming rapidly an a new cone funnel formed that was spinning like mad and even starting to come down but I am unsure if it touched down. I decided to get closer as the storm cycled and finally found a good place to pull off. The structure was UNREAL with incredible banding and stacked plates it spun slowly drifting north off the warm front which made me believe the tornado potential was all but gone however the storm continued to spin itself out as a gorgeous LP at one point there was no precip just a gorgeous storm spinning itself to death. I decided to call it a day after the sun set behind the horizon and I was home by 9:00. What a great day! Also my first solo tornado.




The Video of the Tornado

Horton, KS Supercell

Here are some pictures of the tornado warned supercell we got on yesterday near Horton, KS in NE Kansas. Unfortunately, it didn't produce and my dad didn't think it was a good idea to make the b-line drive to Grand Island since it was risky so we went home. Congrats to everyone who bagged the awesome Aurora tornado.

Well we are likely done for the season since I am just so burnt out from this lousy year. I am going job hunting and get my mind off of all of the mistakes and misses we have had this year. We will be rockin and rollin next year though with likely a new car, a large budget, and much better flexibility.