Reports from the Last Two Months Part 2

Once Andy left the US still experienced the "Ridge Fest" for atleast another week. Finally on June 7th I decided to go chase alone. This was my first time chasing alone and it was much harder navigating around.

As you can see here on the 300 mb chart at least some form of a jet stream across Colorado which looking eastward difluence out providing some upper level divergence (indicated by the contours of yellow on the map) This was not seen for atleast the previous 3 weeks so obviously I was excited to finally see some kind of cyclonic development.


At the lower levels of the atmosphere (850 mb) a low was forming on leeward side of the Rockies another typical occurrence that was not happening in the last 3 weeks. With these factors in place it aided with moisture advection from the south with a week frontal zone near the KS/Neb border. There was also a cold front located west of Topeka that can't really been seen by this chart.

With these and of course other countless parameters the Storm prediction center put a moderate risk for Northeastern KS, Southeastern NEB, and Northwestern MO.

My original target was somewhere west of Topeka. I decided on this area because this is where the frontal zone was located and figured this is where the thunderstorm initiation would form. However, once I was driving out towards Topeka I noticed a good amount of high cirrus clouds. This does not help with instability and forming convection. I then decided to start heading north because I noticed cumbus clouds began to build. As I updated the radar on my phone I saw the first storm had formed near Marysville, KS. I then raced along highway 75 northbound, figuring that there would also be some storms developing south of the first cell. Sure enough it did and here are some early pictures of that storm:

There was some weak updrafts forming on the rear backside of the storm, which is typically where you find rotation/tornadoes however this storm was still very early in its life span. After seeing this storm not materializing much, I decided to go after the first storm that formed near Marysville, which was now located east of Beatrice, Nebraska. On my way there I saw literally hundreds of storm chasing. Even some of the massive vortex 2 research project (read more at http://www.vortex2.org/home/) I also saw Reed Timmer in his dominator(a vehile designed to drive INSIDE a tornado). If you have ever watched storm chasers on discovery channel you know who this is.

As I was on storm #2 there was a wall cloud which can somewhat seen here:
After this everything went down hill. Got caught up in HORRIBLE traffic on I-29, which was a mixture of scared regular people driving like 80 year olds or crazed storm chasers driving like...crazed storm chasers. Storm #1, which was from those first two pictures was quickly intensifying and was then tornado warned. Here is a picture of it nearing its mature stage:
It was very difficult catching up to storm #1 and I decided to give up since the sun was nearing sunset. There was a brief tornado from storm #1 during the time I decided to call it quits.

This was not the end of the road for me but also not the end of disappointment.

On June 10th the setup was near the same as June 7th except the frontal boundary was south of Lawrence around Wichita running west to east. The lee rocky mts low also developed in a slightly difference location. I had to make a tough choice here on my original target area. It was clear it was either going to be West or East of Wichita. SPC first had a moderate risk located northwest of Wichita but later changed to southeast. I was not sure about the move but the models were pointing to greater helecity (the tendency for updrafts in thunderstorms to rotate) east of Wichita. I decided to go with what SPC was saying and went to Augusta, Kansas (east of Wichita)

Along this trip I bought along my girlfriend Mahleah and her friend Natalie. I was surprised I could actually get people to come with me as I drove over 12 hours and for the most part had a very disappointing day. What ended up happening was a classic supercell developed near Dodge City. It turns out here the greatest helecity occurred and also a good amount of positive vorticity advenction. This can be seen here in the 00 Z analysis of that day:


The storms that we intercepted in southeastern Kansas just would not rotate much. If you liked a lot of rain and lightning it was a blast though (no pun intended :P) A few interesting images were taken though:


These pictures were taken south of Howard, Kansas. After the storm showed a little rotation located on that last picture, the cluster of storms started to lack any rotational features. It all just became a big area of heavy rain, small hail, and lightning. I experienced some of the heaviest rain I ever saw though while driving. I had to pull over and let the storm pass some while on highway 75 north of Independence, Kansas. Finally I caught some great distant lightning as we about 20 miles away from the cluster of storms.