Getting up on this morning carried an excitement that really hadn’t been felt all year. It looks like the first TRUE chase day in the Plains, and at a close proximity to home, it was definitely a nice change from the I-20 corridor we’ve spent so much time on so far in the season. I left Westminster and headed down to Lakewood to swap rides and ready the mesonet vehicle for the trip. We ventured out about 10ish and headed out I-70.
As we left town and crossed E-470, we passed beneath fast building towers that showed some good promise for Colorado landspouts. We wanted the biggies in Kansas, so after making a passing comment to Carl in regards to this torm likely producing spouts in the next 30 minutes, we continued on. Before we even made Limon, news was breaking of a large wedge tornado on the ground 20 miles north of my apartment with a northwest storm motion.
The news continued to get worse, and my excitement fell into complete and utter disgust. The tornado that will likely be one of the biggest in Colorado history was ongoing behind us, and we were driving away from it like we didn’t care. Its been a long while since I felt truely sick like I did then. The news station was the first among many to flood my cell phone with “where are you” phone calls to which I hesitantly answered with “not there”. Reports then started coming in from Windsor where the nearly mile-wide EF3 made a direct hit. The town was very badly damaged as the storm continued to move northwest, narrowly missing the northeastern suburbs of Ft. Collins as it crossed I-25. The storm continued to produce into Wyoming.
After a long, somber trip into Goodland, we met with the rest of the crew. The Colorado-based chasers were in complete shock and we were all very somber. The damage pictures were streaming in and reports of fatalities and injuries flooded the news markets. It was a horrific scene. Obviously, we never want to see such a tragedy occur, but to have missed something so epic in our own backyard was devestating from our point of view.
That was as close as I ever was to hanging up chasing. How on earth did I managed to miss such an event. It hurt, and it was going to hurt for a while. But alas, the day was young, and we had our turn coming. It was a win-all or go home thing for me by this point. A bust was simply not an option today. Nor was the typical tornado we had been seeing all year. I needed a crazy day to save me from a bad weather depression.
So off we went! Storms began firing to our south and we moved east on I-70 to intercept. As we left Goodland, a severe storm passed over us dumping golfball sized hail as we made our eastward escape. We managed to beat out that storm and continued on. We eventually jumped off I-70 near Grainfield and shot south on KS-23 toward Gove. A storm peaked our interest and we observed a brief funnel cloud with this cell before it vanished. The funnel lead us north of I-70 toward Grainfield and I then turned west on old Highway 40 and went about a mile or so to County Road 42 and followed this mud road north a bit. By this time, the chaser circus was arriving.
Some time passed and we repositioned south again on KS-23 to get a peak at the next storm. It wasn’t as organized initially, but it was certainly tornado warned. We again followed it along the nearly exact same stretch of highway. A low contrast funnel appeared as we approached the interstate from the south.
Tornado on the ground, I shouted into my radio as we turned west out of Grainfield and observed a beautiful white tornado to our immediate north.
That was the view looking north from Old Highway 40 just west of Grainfield. We turned north again on County Road 42 and observed it a bit longer.
The mud road went quickly to cake batter and I went over a small hill and came down only to have my backend start to fishtail. I tried to regain control of the vehicle the best I could at 30mph, but to no avail. Seeing the sharp drop off coming up, I decided to e-brake myself into the ditch where I felt I could do the least damage to the vehicle. We slid in sideways and came to rest in the ditch. Meanwhile, the vehicle behind me was broadcasting a streaming webcam and about 450 people watched live as I went into the ditch. The camera man was also fishtailing at the time and thus missed the payoff as I went over. Out of the parade of vehicles, only ONE slowed to check to see if we were okay. The tornado came over our well being and no one else bothered to even roll down a window to ask if we were okay. Not terribly surprised, I’m afraid.
With the vehicle disabled for the time being, there was nothing left to do but enjoy the show.
As the tornado moved out of view, the next question was how to get out. My chase partner, Stefan Bechtel, was standing on the road as I got back in the car and reversed hoping I could just retrace my tire tracks out of the ditch. I was able to get about halfway up, but the incline was too steep to make it. Stefan then directed me to an incline about 20 yards ahead of where we came to rest. I gunned the car back through the ditch and bounced off a small culvert before ramping the car back up the incline. She slid a few times, but managed to make it back to the road. Excited that I pulled that miracle out of my ass, I hopped out of the car and did a “Independence Day” “Yeah, that’s right” scene at the ditch. Stefan jumped back in, we exchanged high fives, and returned to Grainfield and topped off.
By this point, SPC elected to upgrade the 1630z moderate risk to a high risk for western Kansas as a tornado outbreak was unfolding. We finally continued east along I-70 after Tim rejoined us only to have the next storm drop a quick funnel to our immediate south. This went on to produce the second tornado of the day, a brief spin up to our immediate east as we repositioned northward back to the interstate.
As we continued along I-70, another tornado touched down to our immediate south. The third of the day.
As this tornado lifted, another white cone was developing southwest of us. We quickly pulled off on the side of the interstate as the collar cloud passed overhead with the tornado crossing the highway less than a half a mile to our west. The shots below are of the white tornado as it approached the interstate from the south. This is looking west at the day’s 4th tornado.
The tornado crossed the interstate and moved northeast before either dissipating or burying itself in the rain. We were unable to tell which at the time.
Later in the evening, south of Wakeeney, we observed our fifth and final tornado of the day. This tornado took some time before making connection with the ground, but when she did, she did it right before dark fell.
We try and book back south again only to have the RFD swing around from behind and catch us. We are forced over and have to wait for the blinding rains and helacious winds to subside before continuing. The winds were shaking the car around pretty good, but fortunately did not result in any damage to the car.
We made it safely back to I-70 and headed to the Best Western Vagabond hotel in Hays where we called it a successful evening and celebrated our day at Applebees among the hoards of other gleeful chasers.
