The April drought ended in style today on what turned out to be one of the most fun chases I’ve had to date. Ironically enough, this day ended exactly where it started, and not on purpose either. After getting out of work at 11:30pm Saturday night, I picked up my friend, Kyle, and we outran the incoming blizzard to get into Kansas. Our initial goal was to make Goodland, Kansas and sleep for a few hours before heading into Hays to meet with other Colorado-based storm chasers. When pumping gas in Goodland, the cold wind gave me MY second wind, and we drove straight through to Hays where we woke up Verne at 6:30am CDT and napped on the floor for 2 and a half hours (yes, I ran this day on 150 minutes of sleep). We left from Hays shortly after 11a and headed into Dodge City where we were aiming for the low. After busting the Tuesday before, we wanted to make sure we stuck to the low. That didn’t happen; we bailed after watching 3 cells go up and die, so we shot north along a series of dirt roads where the fun began. We intercepted our first storm in Trego County and watched 3 tornadoes drop from that cell, including a WATERSPOUT in Kansas! After getting separated from the Colorado gang, Kyle and I flew east on I-70, punching a storm to find a 4th tornado on the other side. We nabbed a 5th tornado north of Russell before calling it a day from Waldo. And incredible day and a top 5 chase!
We opted to abandon our southern target after watching three towers go up and get sheared apart. We fled north following Mike before shooting west and back to the north.
As we approached Cedar Bluff Reservoir along K-147, we observed a funnel cloud to our immediate north. Once we got some elevation as we approached the dam, we could see the swirl over the water’s surface, confirming the touchdown of the first tornado of the day! Yes, a waterspout in Kansas!
The tornado lifted as it made landfall, but the funnel remained. It passed directly over the highway and directly over the car.
As we continued north, trying to keep pace with the storms, another funnel reached down and was pretty persistent. We were unable to confirm any ground circulation with this one.
Upon dispersing from the convergence, northbound again we went, but it wasn’t long before the next funnel reached down, starting what would end up being the show of the day.
We stopped briefly as the funnel poked at the ground. But the speed of the storm meant we jumped back northbound to stay with it.
With full condensation and a beautiful tornado underway, Amos and I stopped south of Ogallah and watched this incredible tornado for a little under five minutes. Hail up to quarter-size was coming down pretty good, meaning we stuck to our vehicles for most of the show.
After several minutes, the stout cone started shrinking into its rope-out stage, signaling the end of my second tornado of the day.
We stuck with the storm, pursuing it north toward I-70. Enroute, we picked up a third, rope tornado a few miles up the Highway as we approached Ogallah. That tornado was on the ground for less than a minute.
Hearing chatter on radio about how these storms were pushing north of the front and becoming elevated, we decided the best course of action was to pick off the other storms coming up from the south along I-70. I was feeding reports to KWCH via cell phone of the tornadoes we just witnessed.
We punched through the core of storms near Russell on I-70 and I have my closest encounter with a rainbow.
As we approached Russell, we got off the interstate at one point to observe one of the incoming storms. I was on the phone with Scott Roberts from KWCH 12 CBS News in Wichita as he was informing us this storm had a report of a wedge on the ground. From this vantage point, we could not see any such wedge.
Initially, I didn’t even see anything that looked tornadic. I was informing Scott that there was in fact NO tornado. As we climbed the ramp, Kyle pointed out the tornado, our forth. I thought he was full of crap. All of a sudden, I find myself immediately retracting my earlier report. “Holy shit, Scott! There actually IS a tornado on the ground!” Scott set me up with a live phone report; 1 of 3 live reports I did via cell phone during the course of the afternoon’s events.
We stuck with this storm, eventually getting over to US-281 north of Russell where we caught a fifth tornado south of Waldo.
With the daylight fading and gas running low, we turned around at K-18 back toward Russell.
We regrouped with the Colorado gang as got back to I-70 at Russell. We gassed up and celebrated an amazing chase day!
Special Thanks to Scott Robers of KWCH 12 in Wichita for his nowcasting assistance and help with getting me live on the air with phone reports, one of which was given as a tornado was on the ground. Also, thanks to Scott for getting my video on air! I also got some airtime with my home station, KMGH Denver!
Special thanks to Verne Carlson for allowing me use of Baron WX in my vehicle. Baron was responsible for getting Kyle and I the 4th and 5th tornadoes in Russell County.
The Colorado Blizzard Evacuation Club
Verne Carlson, Jon Merage, Tom Dulong, Kyle Kluge, Chris Rozoff, and several students from CSU! All of which are still sitting in Kansas Monday morning hoping I-70 reopens this afternoon and allows us to return home where Denver will be digging out of as much as 20 inches of snow. Every school in town was closed.. except Auraria Campus.. BOOOOO on them! Hehehehe!
Also, it was great to see all my chaser friends in the field. Amos Magliocco (you see me wearing my jersey, you know we’re gonna score), Doug Kiesling, Melanie Metz, Mike Umscheid, Frtiz Kruse, and several others whom I passed but didn’t get a chance to chat with. Glad to hear everyone who played Northern Kansas scored well! And as you can see in the SPC reports below, it was the ONLY tornado action in the country (minus the Oklahoma rando).
