Storm Chase of May 3-4, 2003
by Shawn Hewitt
with Andy Revering, Merideth Lindrud, Joel Lampe, and Adam Goslowski
Background
On Friday Andy posted an email to the mn-chase newsgroup asking if anyone was up for a weekend-long chase in Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri. All of us were anticipating a big weekend of active weather, but I hadn't entertained the idea of a long distance chase until Andy's post. I replied with a tentative interest. After arriving home from work I checked emails, and the latest messages were from Andy. He had secured a group of interested storm chasers, and now I had to decide how serious I was to go on this long trek. After all, I was tired and it meant many more hours on the road. I called Andy, and his take on the situation was "Armageddon." Now I had to go. After a little negotiation with my wife Cheryl (I made the weekend trip part of my birthday present from Cheryl), I called Andy again to firm up plans. We would take my van, and aim to leave the Twin Cities just after midnight.
Saturday, May 3, 2003
Merideth arrived from St. Cloud at my house about midnight on Friday. We packed up my van, and I said bye to my wife Cheryl, and we were on our way to pick up Andy and Joel at his house in Bloomington. We met them and the four us discussed our game plan. We nearly entered our first discord on choosing the route. Andy favored a direct route to Omaha traveling southwestward on the rural highways. Joel, Merideth and I favored the Interstates for speed. Our decision was made for us when Andy, while talking on the phone with Adam in Ames Iowa, told us that Adam would like to ride with us. Ames is on I-35, so Interstate it was. We were further encouraged that the SPC raised their outlook to a moderate risk of severe weather over our target area.
We picked up Adam in the wee hours of Saturday morning. We were a little concerned about overcrowding in the van, but all turned out well when everyone seemed to find a spot that suited them. Andy took over driving in Ames, so I was able to relax a bit, but I didn't feel like sleeping. I thoroughly enjoyed the hours of conversation with Andy and others.
Night turned into morning and we crossed into Nebraska. Our data feeds were working well. What concerned us, however, was a cloud deck that stretched far into the state. After stopping for breakfast and checking the latest charts, we observed that the SPC lowered their forecast down to a slight risk over our target. The best probability for tornadoes was in extreme west Kansas and Nebraska. We opted to head south into Kansas to catch a richer environment. We really didn't want to head to the Colorado border.
In mid-afternoon we arrived in Salina Kansas and decided to find the local library for a better internet connection. The SPC forecasts had not changed much. Joel and I focused our attention to the forecast graphics for Sunday evening. We thought pretty decisively that Kansas City would be tomorrow's target. But back to the present, Andy and Adam observed a little echo on radar to our southwest. We decided that as soon as we got a yellow pixel, we would be out the door. Sure enough, the cell strengthened and we went into chase mode. It was good practice. To make a long story short, the cell died and we were under a persistent stratus deck. We concluded that the day was a bust for us. Time to secure lodging for the evening.
In Topeka we tried to find rooms, but all were taken because of some racing convention going on. So we continued east on I-70, finally landing a room in Leavenworth Kansas. The hotel met our basic needs of beds and a cable TV with the Weather Channel. That evening were intrigued by the language used by the local news stations and the Weather Channel about the risk of significant and dangerous weather forecast for Sunday for many metropolitan areas in the central plains, specifically mentioning Omaha, Des Moines, Kansas City and others. We predicted that the SPC would upgrade the risk to high on the their next update. We also watched with interest on TV the tornadic supercells on radar that split in western Nebraska that evening, and contemplated how our evening might have been had we gone west. I was the first in bed -- after being up for 36 hours I couldn't last any longer.
Sunday, May 4, 2003
The day began after a well-deserved rest around 9 am. We reviewed the forecast graphics and were excited but not much surprised to find that the SPC had posted a high risk for severe weather in our area. Once again Andy pronounced that today was Armageddon. He was up most of the night doing his own forecast. He favored playing the dry line to our west in hopes of capturing picturesque LP supercells. We all concurred and plotted our course west for Salina.
Once we hit Topeka, we made a stop at Wal-Mart for camera batteries, got some gas for the van and food for our stomachs. Adam pulled up some satellite graphics to show that a nice cu field was forming to our southwest. We opted to head southwest down the turnpike to place ourselves in better position. On the way down, it occurred to me that there were very few exits on this stretch of interstate, which made me rather uncomfortable. At 11:40 the first tones were heard over the radio from the NWS station at Topeka. The SPC issued a PDS Tornado Watch for northeastern Kansas. We were on the southern border of the watch, and decided to exit the interstate at our next opportunity.
We left the toll road and headed east for the town of Burlingame. Once we were in the wide streets of the town, we pulled over to stop and check out the skies around us. We were greeted first by some locals who said they were from Minnesota too, but gave us a rather strange look when we told them we were there to find storms. The next welcome was from the local law enforcement, who stopped for a friendly chat. Each of us did our own thing in search of a cell to chase. Adam was on radar in the back seat, while I enjoyed watching the towers around us getting sheared off. The sky was cluttered in updrafts and small towers. One of them would surely become successful and hold a sustained updraft, but there was no clue as to which would be the winner. We decided to move northeast with the cu field as the contest continued.
North of town we encountered our first sprinkles, and through some breaks in the sky we spotted potential towers to chase. We followed the small roads back up to Topeka, as Adam indicated that radar echos were strengthening. Back to the interstate, we traveled east with the intention of going northeast on 4, when we missed our turn and headed east on I-70 with no exits in site. We traveled a ways to the Lawrence exit and found a parking lot to re-evaluate the situation. After spending perhaps 15 minutes checking the radar sweeps and the skies around us, we left northward to catch a growing cell.
The visibility worsened as rain fell and we became worried that today's show would be one of rain-wrapped tornadoes. Another scan of radar revealed a new cell growing to our southwest, near the dry line. If that one would take off, Andy argued, it would be a lone LP supercell with awesome structure. We agreed to abandon our current storm in search of a more perfect storm.
We headed south and west towards Topeka once more. As radar scans continued to show a strengthening lone cell, the storms to our east grew explosively. We looked out our back window to find towers forming a line of about three supercells. The northernmost storm of this line turned tornadic. The cu field had given way, but we had trouble making a visual on our lone cell. After passing Topeka, we got word from Adam in the back that the radar echos were weakening. Our lone cell was drying out, as the dry punch from the southwest overtook it and prevented it from drawing moist fuel from the surface. After some brief discussion, Andy turned over the navigator seat to Joel, and we were headed east on I-70 to catch the storms ahead of us. Before long, more tones were heard as Tornado Warnings were issued for this line of cells.
The target was clearly before us -- three towering storms connected and forming a line. The northernmost was the first storm we abandoned. The storms straight ahead and off to the right as we traveled east on I-70 were blossoming in their glory. We chose the center storm, and before long we heard Kansas City NWS personnel making live broadcasts about a tornado on the ground. Our eyes were fixed on the storm base, trying to discern any identifiable features.
As we traveled east, the traffic thickened and then suddenly came to a stop. We were alarmed by the prospect that the road was blocked and our chase was over. Upon crawling further in the left lane, we observed that a highway patrolman had pulled over about 40 vehicles in a large ditch to keep them from the path of the tornado. The lanes were not blocked after all, and our chase continued.
The storm features grew more interesting, but no distinct funnel was yet visible. Before long we approached the toll booth, and there the tornado had left its mark. Broken branches and all manner of debris was on the road. Off to the right several trees were down. It was just before the toll booth that the tornado had crossed the interstate. While the toll attendants had obviously left their posts for safety, a number of drivers stopped at the booths, waiting for someone to take their money. I blasted an impatient toot on my horn to get the traffic moving again, for the tornado was not far from us.
Moving once again, we soon encountered debris falling upon us, in a cyclonic pattern. There was styrofoam insulation, leaves, feathers! We tried even harder to visualize the tornado in the features before us. What we at first thought to be a funnel was RFD pushing cloud tags down and out from the meso. Then, a bit later, off to the left...
There it was. A wide tornado was visible in the low contrast skies out the left window. It was about 1-2 miles away. In good timing, we encountered an exit ramp, crossed over to the on-ramp, and stopped to capture the storm on camera.
Our position was superb. We were overlooking the Kansas Speedway, a huge open area, where our elevated position gave us every opportunity to view the violent contact this storm was making with the ground. The twisting motion at the base was phenomenal, while the area of circulation around it was quite large. The cone widened as we watched it approach the northwest Kansas City area. We saw two power flashes. In all, we watched about five minutes from our position before the vortex took on a wedge shape and faded into the background of threatening skies.
We got back into the van to continue our chase, but we did not find it again. Perhaps a different route would have helped, but in the end it really did not matter. We got what was most important to us. We got our wedge.
Let me finish by saying that there was a special interaction in our group that made this a success. We could have changed any one of a dozen major decisions and not captured this storm. This was the experience of a lifetime for me.