WKU Meteorology

We kicked the day off in Spearfish, South Dakota and headed southeast toward the Badlands for a little sight seeing on our way to our target location.

Photo by Andrew Schuler

We initially planned to head to extreme southwest South Dakota, but as the day progressed and new data came in, we decided to head more toward northwest/ north-central Nebraska.

Photo by Ryan Difani

The main severe weather threat being large hail, damaging winds, and an isolated tornado. We arrived in Thedford, Nebraska around 5pm and began waiting for storm initiation. A cell fired up just to the east of us around 6pm. The storm intensified rapidly but remained relatively stationary. Incredibly strong inflow continued to enhance the storm by pulling in warm, moist air.

Photo by Colton Lindsey

We found a good viewing location for the storm, but were forced to head south once we began being pelted by hail. Internet access and cell phone service was nearly absent throughout much of the chase, forcing us to blindly navigate away from the hail core and southwest corner of the supercell where the radar indicated a possible tornado. We found ourselves trying to maneuver deep sand back roads and encountered several dead ends. Finally we made it back to a paved road and were able to gain a signal for the radar. The supercell had been downgraded to a severe warned storm, so we headed about 20 mile south to another storm with better rotation. By then it was already dark and the storm didn’t look overly impressive, so we pulled off the road and enjoyed the amazing lightning show.

Photo by Tyler Smith

After the lightning drifted too far for viewing, we headed back to our northwest toward the previous storm that was still cranking out quite a lightning show. We ended up off the main road in a windmill farm watching the beautiful flashes of lightning illuminate the mammatus clouds.

Photo by Tyler Smith

Photo by Tyler Smith

After about 45 minutes we headed toward North Platte, Nebraska to our hotel. We arrived around 12:30am and within minutes everyone was snoozing.

We woke up in Ogallala, NE with a slight risk from the SPC covering from western Montana down into Kansas, with large hail being the main threat although tornadoes were still possible. After the usual morning discussion we decided to head to our target area around Spearfish, SD.

As we approached Sturgis around 2 the first storms started to initiate just to our north. The cell we were initially on began to fall apart rapidly but recycled itself, just as it continued to do for the rest of the afternoon. We ended up staying on the same quasi-stationary cell for 7 hours, traveling only 50 miles to stay with it!

Photo by Colton Lindsey

With each recycle, the supercell became more structured with hail up to 2.5 inches.

Photo by Colton Lindsey

At times the RFD would dominate the cell causing it to gust out.

Photo by Colton Lindsey

Photo by Colton Lindsey

We chased the cell until we ran out of road to safely navigate with it, so we set up to watch the storm pass as the sunset behind it.

Photo by Colton Lindsey

With the passing of the storm we were able to see the entire updraft as it was illuminated by the sunset. Dr. Durkee was able to capture some amazing pictures of this almost surreal set up.

Photo by Josh Durkee

After this photogenic storm day we headed back to Spearfish to our hotel to set up for the next day.

We left Amarillo, TX at 9 this morning after a quick forecast discussion in the van, with a destination in Northeast Colorado to watch initiation. We ended up in Holyoke, CO and followed a storm onto the border of CO and NE, which lost strength. We then drove to the Ogallala, NE area and saw amazing mammatus clouds and an also amazing lightning show! Goodnight from Ogallala, NE!!

We woke up today and had our forecast discussion in Lubbock, TX.  We all did a surface analysis

for where we thought our target was going to be.  After the discussion, we all agreed that the area from Lubbock to Childress to Amarillo, TX was going to be the best area for severe weather.  We headed out and stopped in Paducah, TX for lunch and ate at a little hole in the wall drive in.  Our orders took longer than we anticipated, due to the fact that they did not have anything prepared.  By the time we all got our meals, thunderstorms had already initiated northeast of Floydada, which was about an hour away to our west.  We got there once it went severe, even tornado warned.  Despite the warning, this storm did not appear from our vantage point to put down a tornado.  This storm did have a strong inflow, which ingested a lot of dust from the surrounding farm land.  This storm ingested so much dust that the rain from this storm also had mud imbedded within the rain drops.  The outflow of this storm also kicked up so much dust that it caused blackout, more like orange-out, conditions

Approaching dust heavy outflow from storm. Photographed by Andrew Schuler.

to where we had to pull off the road and wait for it to pass.  We also saw plenty of land spouts,

Land spout photographed by Andrew Schuler.

gustnadoes,

Gustnado photographed by Andrew Schuler

and dust devils.

Dust devil photographed by Andrew Schuler.

We left the storm later due to the fact that it lost its rotation.  By this time, we were near Spur, TX and we changed our mindset from chasing to eating. We decided to go to the Big Texan in Amarillo, TX

Store front of the Big Texan restaurant. Photographed by Andrew Schuler.

for dinner and while we were there, we witnessed someone take on and complete the 72 oz. steak challenge with only 13 seconds left in the hour long challenge.  With bellies full of steak, we all headed our hotel and rested for what is going to be another day of chasing.

We started the day in Georgetown, Texas and headed toward Lubbock, Texas around 9:30. There was no severe weather around the southern plains region, so we had more of a laid back travel day in order to be in position for the next day which had a slight risk for severe storms out for part of the Texas panhandle. Much of the day was spent traveling through cactus territory. For lunch we stopped at a place called Chuy’s,

which was best described as a whole in the wall.  From Chuy’s we headed Northwest toward Lubbock, Tx which sits on a giant plateau known a the Texas caprock. Our elevation by the time we reached Lubbock was over 3,000 feet.  A few dust devils were spotted along the way. Although there were no storms, we still had some action.

We stopped at Reese Research Facilities, which is Texas Tech’s Meteorology facilities, for a brief tour. The facility is home to Vortech, the tornado simulator.

They also had two radar trucks which they have used to conduct research of hurricanes and tornadoes.

From there we headed to our Hotel and then out to dinner at Triple J’s, a local restaurant with amazing food. After dinner we all headed to bed, resting up for what looks like a more active chase day.

We started off the morning in Gainesville, TX. After a forecast disscussion the group decided to target around Hillsboro, which is just southwest of Dallas. We ended up riding with the storm to Belton.

The storm was already slightly organized before becoming part of the larger scale MCS. There was some rotation on it, but the lack of good road networking made the storm unchaseable. The above image is what we were seeing in Belton.  After leaving the storm, the group then visited the Jarrell Memorial Park.

This memorial park is in honor of the EF5 that came through Jarrell on May 27, 1997. Now we are trying to make our way north to the panhandle of Texas to get set for the next couple of days.

We began the day in Tulsa, OK with a moderate risk from the SPC covering a large area from the OK/TX border into sections of Arkansas and Missouri.  A tornado threat was definitely noticeable as the main focus covered much of Oklahoma.  We decided to head towards Duncan, OK after a brief morning discussion.

Surface analysis for 1245Z on May 20, 2013.

There was very favorable upper level winds with a considerable amount of instability and moisture convergence near Duncan.  Day 2 was more favorable for tornadoes as things seemed to stay more isolated which would enhance the strength of individual supercells.  Storm motions were a little slower than the first day, which would help our driving situation and keeping up with the storms.

We arrived in Duncan around one to eat lunch and wait for the storms to initiate.  Our first storm system started firing up slightly after we arrived.  We followed one supercell for a while before falling back as the cell to the south seemed to be gaining strength and looking more favorable.  We noticed our first funnel cloud of the day around 2:30.

This funnel cloud never officially touched down at this point.  We traveled east a little for a while before we noticed a tornado on the ground from a longer distance as we had to reposition due to another storm moving into original area.

This tornado seemed to be on the ground for a few minutes before lifting up.  Several minutes later we noticed a tornado around the same area that dropped down.  We can not conclude that this was another tornado or that it was the same tornado that had just lost some of the strength from before.

After this storm lifted we followed this storm just past Pauls Valley but never saw anything else drop.    As this evening of chasing was coming to an end we moved south to position ourselves in Gainesville, TX to be in position for the next day.

Our hearts go out to those impacted in the Moore, OK area.  This was a truly devastating event and they are kept in our thoughts and prayers.

Post and Photos by Andrew Schuler

We started the day in Wichita, KS after a brief chase on our travel day. The SPC had already outlined the day with a “Moderate Risk” over north central Oklahoma into southeast Kansas, with one risk being tornadoes. The group gathered for our daily forecast discussion at 10 am and decided to initially target the Arkansas City, KS to Ponca City, OK area.

The morning (1425Z) surface analysis indicated a low pressure system on the OK/TX border with a dryline bulge to the south. Meanwhile moisture was being advected north into north central OK and south central KS.

This was an area beneath a jet streak at 500 mb and also a strong 850 mb low-level jet which was expected in increase into the evening hours. Instability was more than sufficient with values over 3000 j/kg and bulk shear were also sufficient over the entire region. Furthermore there was a dryline bulge forecast to move in very close to the OK/KS border just south of Wichita. There were a couple of issues for the day, one being that the cap was nearly non-present by early afternoon which allowed convection to initiate early and possibly become clustered by the late afternoon hours when the atmosphere was a little more favorable for tornado development. Also storm motions were much faster than our previous day in the realm of 20 to 30 knots; that however is still very workable.

We left Wichita and moved east and south and ate lunch in Winfield, KS. We then drifted south to Arkansas City and around 2:30 storms began to fire along a boundary just west west of I-35 and southwest of Wichita, so we moved west toward the storms particularly one just southwest of Wichita. As we approached the storm from the southeast the rotation was strengthening  and a tornado warning was issued for the storm. Then around 3:20 (now moving east down a dirt road) we spotted a funnel cloud just to our north which briefly extended a condensation funnel to the ground and thus became our first tornado of the trip. The tornado only touched down for a matter of seconds before lifting.

The brief tornado our group spotted just north of Conway Springs, KS at around 3:20 pm. Photo by Andrew Schuler. (Enhanced contrast)

We continued to travel northeast with the storm to Wichita. We never saw another tornado from our vantage point southeast of the storm but a radar imagery denoted that the tornado was likely blocked by rain. Indeed other

Base radar reflectivity just southwest of Wichita, KS. Our location was to the south and east of the storm and thus a tornado was blocked by rain from our vantage point.

chasers reported another tornado around this time. As the storm moved into the populated areas of Wichita, we moved south to developing supercells on the southern end of the line. We continued stair-stepping down to the southern supercell along the line for much of the rest of the day and while rotation was present and lowerings in the clouds noted near the updrafts, nothing appeared to be close to producing a tornado. We ended the chase just east of Ponca City and moved southeast to Tulsa to spend the night.

The trip started bright and early this year as the group decided to leave Bowling Green at 4 am on Saturday morning in order to possibly chase some storms in southern Kansas. The trip usually requires a full day of travel before the chase begins but because the risk for severe storms in Kansas looked worth going for, we made the decision to leave early to try to catch them by the evening hours. It was a win-win situation for the because even if we didn’t see storms we would be in position to chase a seemingly better day of storms on Sunday.

By 8 am we were in Southaven, MS to pick up Dr. Grady Dixon and we quickly headed north and west through Arkansas and Missouri, arriving in Kansas by early afternoon. With our target in the Pratt, KS region we pushed west through Kansas to try to make it too storms which would soon be imitating. We didn’t expect to arrive by initiation time and indeed storms did initiate when we were in the Wichita area. As we pushed toward the Pratt region we dropped south to move onto a cluster of storms moving across the Oklahoma border into southern Kansas. The storms initially showed some weak signs of rotation but the storms became very clustered around the time we arrived in the area. Because of this and the shared cold pool by the storms, the storms became outflow dominate. Outflow dominate meaning the winds were being pushed out of the storm rather than being drawn in (inflow), which is ideal for tornado development. The storm exhibited some nice structure, with nice shelf cloud and whale’s mouth cloud features. The strong winds in the outflow of the storm also created some blowing dust. As the sun set, we called it a day and moved back to Wichita to stay the night to be in play for another “Moderate Risk” day on Sunday.

A “whale’s mouth” feature was present in this storm we intercepted just west of Medicine Lodge, KS.

Well, here we go!!! Dr. Durkee, Dr. Dixon, and 8 students embarked on the 4th trip to the Central Plains. The kicker for this trip is that we left at 4:00 this morning, so we could possibly get to Pratt, KS in time to see some initiation of storms. Let’s hope that this early morning start brings a successful day of chasing. (WP)