Pretty well wiped out after the Dodge Dozen yesterday, there was not a lot of intention to make a chase day out of today. One of the Wichita stations I was contracted out for asked me to come in studio to record a segment discussing the Dodge City outbreak, so that was the big plan for the morning into early afternoon. With a moderate risk on deck for the next day for central Kansas, we kept our hotel in Pratt and headed out from there. Knowing there was storm potential, I opted to toss in one of my Nikon cameras just in case, leaving a majority of my gear in the room to charge after being run constantly the day before. We drove the hour east to Wichita and went in to the studio for the big chat about Dodge City.
Upon completing that, it was around 3:30pm. I had a package to edit for my station back in Illinois, so we went to grab a late lunch on the northwest side of Wichita while I edited the video in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart. As I finished up, a couple storms developed just east of Wichita. Figuring since we were there, there wasn’t really a reason to NOT give them a look, so armed with a laptop and my Nikon, we headed east on KS-254 heading toward Eldorado. As we got closer to Eldorado, we were semi-excited about the prospects as the storms looked pretty good.
But…
Further to the north up around Salina, another supercell was ongoing, and I happened to see a Spotter Network report of a tornado up near Salina (thank you, Adam Lucio for that report, you set the rest of the day into motion). This was the initial touchdown prior to the main EF-4 show. With that storm all by its lonesome, we discussed the idea of making a Hail Mary run up to I-70 where we thought that storm, which has produced, would probably continue to do so if it stayed isolated and in a favorable environment.
Figuring why not, we abandoned the Eldorado cell as soon as we hit KS-196 west of town, made the north turn, and circled back to I-135, connecting up south of Newton, then made the ‘slightly-over-the-speed-limit’ run up I-135 to Salina. By the time we hit I-70 and shot east, the main tornado was WELL underway. The storm, fortunately, was moving slow enough where as long as it continued on its path, we should be able to catch it about 30 miles east on I-70, so that was the plan.
Fortunately I-70 took a very favorable route, not only with interstate speeds, but the jog to the east/northeast, which put us perfectly in line with eastward moving supercell. As we got around Abilene, we had our first views of the monster tornado to our northeast. We had some rain between us and it, but it was apparent we needed only go a few more miles east to get a clean view looking due north, so while we kept eyes on the tornado, we pushed further east, getting just south, if not a hair southeast of the tornado outside Abilene.
It was kinda surreal to be coasting on the interstate and just watch as a massive tornado gradually comes into view ahead of you. It’s one of the strangest feelings I have had chasing a tornado as we knew the entire time from Salina that we were going to eventually see this thing, and as it came into view, just the scope of it was unreal.
We stopped at various intervals along I-70 between I-70 Exit 281 and Chapman to get some photos and video as the tornado closed in on the interstate.
With the storm moving due east, and I-70 pointed east/northeast, we knew this was likely going to cross the interstate west of Chapman. As we slowly worked our way east on the interstate, we made multiple short stops to grab imagery as the tornado closed in. One one of the final stops as the tornado approached, I was standing out on the shoulder and could feel the vibrations in the concrete from the tornado. It was a surreal moment. I wish I could’ve documented that somehow. But wow.
We pushed a little further east and stopped, the tornado now crossing the interstate about a half mile behind us in just about the same spot we made our last stop moments earlier.
With the tornado now south of I-70, we, too dropped south, getting off at Chapman and blazing through town. Fortunately the tornado did NOT do the same as it passed just south of the city. We dropped south of the damage path and got a few last looks at the tornado as it moved off to the east.
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After the tornado faded from view, we had to circle around via a bunch of back roads as the damage path had blocked our route back up to Chapman. We heard pretty quickly that the town was sparred, so relief there. But as the storm continued on away from us, the backside lightning started putting on a bit of a show. With a little time to spare, we stopped to capture a few shots before calling it a day and returning to Pratt.
For a day we had no intention chasing, this obviously turned into one of the best tornado intercepts of my career. Despite missing the first 45 minutes of this tornado as we hauled up from Newton, then over from Salina on I-70, we still managed to see the entire second half of this tornado. We probably had about 10 minutes of viewing before we made our first stop, and from that first picture to the last, it was about 30 minutes between them. I definitely wish I had my full arsenal of cameras with me, and that is on me. But I am happy to no end I had the wherewithal to at least grab my Nikon camera. It definitely paid off. This chase, a literal tornado chase down I-70, wrapped up what would be the most prolific tornado stretch of my career, nearly two-dozen total tornadoes over the last five days, all within a week of acquiring the new vehicle. She’s definitely got something to her, huh.
