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We saw this potential outbreak coming over three days in advance. Kyle
came to Tulsa from Kansas City, so we could chase together. This storm
was marking a major pattern shift. Most of the severe weather was
occurring in the Northern Plains. Now, it was shifting to the Southern
Plains.
I was pretty sure SPC would issue a High Risk,
especially since it was Memorial Day Weekend. It looked like it was be
a very busy day with some action. I wasn't disappointed. Oh yeah, my
tornado-less streak is now over.
Target: Pratt, KS
Chase Partners:
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Kyle Mozley
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Location:
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SW, Central Kansas, and E Oklahoma
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Miles Travelled:
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700
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Total Time:
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16 Hours
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11:00am (1600 UTC)
Kyle and I left my house in Glenpool, OK, bound for Pratt, KS. We
headed north on US-75 to US-412 westbound. We stopped at Tonkawa, OK,
at a Love's Travelstop. I bought a 24-hr account with Truckstop.net.
After finally getting the connection to work, Kyle and I looked over
data for about 20 minutes before deciding our target area still looked
prime.
We continued north on I-35/Kansas Turnpike until
we got to Wichita. A PDS Tornado Watch was issued for Kansas and
Oklahoma. We learned that Aaron Kennedy was in the area positioning
himself in Hutchinson, KS. We stopped in Newton, KS, we lunch and a
data check. Here we met up with chasers Blake Naftel, Melissa Moon,
and Tony Laubach. After looking at some more data and killing about 2
hours, we decided to head south of Hutchinson to set up shop.
3:00pm (2000 UTC)
Storms began to form south of Pratt, KS, all the
way into SW OK. These would eventually include one supercell (Storm-B
below) that formed one county east of the OK/TX border and tracks all
the way to Delaware County, OK (OK/AR border). We headed east out of
Newton, KS, on US-50, we decided to try for some storms developing to
our SW. Fortunately for us, storm motion was primarily E-ENE at
20-30mph, and Kansas has a wonderful road network...especially dirt
roads. We dropped south on US-61 from Hutchinson, then south on KS-14.
There are three storms that we could intercept.
We tried to go after the northern storm because it was closest. During
the intercept, the middle storm died leaving us with two storms. We
hoped this would isolate them and cause som e strengthening. However,
the northern storm's inflow was seeded and became choked off the storm
to the south, which was quickly becoming the dominant supercell
(Storm-A). We abandoned this storm and proceeded to intercep Storm-A.
We hurried south on KS-14 through Kingman south to US-160, then east to
Milan. Tony broke off of us at somepoint and opted to take another
route that would put him closer to the storm sooner. Blake and Melissa
were riding together and opted to go with us and swing out east of the
storm, which would put us much further away, but with plenty of time to
let the storm come to us.
7:30pm (0030 UTC)
We continued west on KS-44, which eventually ended
in road construction. Tornado-1A began to rope. From our point of
view, the tornado weakened, remained in contact with the ground, then
gained some strength and definition. We turned north onto S. Argonia
Rd. Next, we turned west on W 60th ST. for one-half mile. This placed
us about 4 miles east of Freeport, or about 6 miles south of Argonia,
KS.
7:42pm (0042 UTC)
 We continued to watch Tornado-1A about 6 miles to
our NW. It continued to move AWAY from us. The tornado was actually
rotating around the mesocyclone itself. About four minutes later, a
new tornado developed due west of our position (Tornado-2A). I
captured it on tape as it formed and evolved (6.4 MB). We decided to try and
get closer to get a better view of the tornado. So, we packed up and
headed north ne miles on Argonia Rd. to S 50th St. We moved 1-2 miles
west and set up shop. We hoped to let the tornado pass about 1 miles
to our NW. However, if it should turn right, we stopped at the
intersection of a road that went four miles straight south. So, we had
a quick exit route. This entire time, Tornado-2A continued to stay on
the ground.
8:00pm (0100 UTC)
As we continued to watch the storm and gather
great video and stills, the tornado became heavily obscured by dust and
debris. Eventually, we lost sight of it, however, we could still make
out the circulation on the ground. We pakced up and headed back to the
north and east, so we could get a better visual on the tornado. We
dropped south on Argonia Rd., back to KS-44, then east to KS-49.
8:44pm (0144 UTC)
We turned north on KS-49 and headed for Conway
Springs, KS (2.9 MB). We came to the realization that this storm was on a
direct path for the Wichita area, and this storm was showing no signs
of weakening anytime soon. At least, it was moving slow enough to
provide lots of warning time. We finally gained some ground on the
storm and still found a half-mile wide wedge on the ground very near
Conway Springs, KS. This tornado has been rated F3 by NWS-Wichita.
9:03pm (0203 UTC)
As Tornado-2A moved into the Conway Springs area,
our northward route (KS-49) was cut off. So, we headed east on US-160
hoping to again get close and intercept the storm north of Wellington,
KS. However, we began to lose light quickly at this point and the
video did not turn out well. We stopped as the tornadic area was due
north of our position by about 4 miles (9 E Wellington). We could not
see the ground due to the trees, so we were unsure if the tornado was
continuously on the ground. If it was, then it had evolved to a
multiple vortex nature. However, we believe that we were seeing
separate touchdowns as the condensation funnels appeared. I believe we
counted twomore possible touchdowns (Tornado-6A and Tornado-7A). We
also meausred inflow winds at 47.8mph 9 miles east of Wellington.
We followed the storm north as it passed north of
Wellington. Turning onto US-81, we spotted another tornado on the
ground as it was back-lit by lightning (Tornado-8A). We stopped one
mile south of KS-55 and watched the storm try to cycle and produce
another tornado south of Wichita. We let the storm pass and talked
with Blake and Melissa for a while. Then, we broke off us the chase.
Blake and Melissa headed into Wichita to evaluate their video and east,
while Kyle and I headed home thinking we were done for the night....
10:45pm (0345 UTC)
We crossed the border back into Oklahoma and
noticed a monster supercell to the south being lit up by lightning. We
could see a back-sheared anvil and knew someplace close to home was
getting creamed. We stopped at the Love's in Tonkawa again for gas and
dinner at Subway. We saw a report from KWTV in OKC of a monster
supercell east of Stroud, OK, heading for the Tulsa area. This is
Storm-B that we briefly mentioned early. We hooked up to the Wi-Fi
signal and checked out some data. The radar picture was incredible.
It was a textbook example of classic, cyclic supercell. The BWER
produced an almost completye donut-hole as well as a clear flanking
line. This storm was on a direct path for Glenpool. We flew east on
US-412/Cimarron Turnpike watching the lightning every step of the way.
12:15am (0515 UTC)
We came into the west side of Tulsa on US-412.
Unfortunately, the core cut us of, and were were not able to get east
of the storm quickly enough. We planned to speed east to US-69 and
drop south to Wagoner to be SE and ahead of the storm. We were forced
to drive slowly through Tulsa to stay out of the core and the
wrap-around area as the tornadic areas passed through south Tulsa (no
damage was found in Tulsa County). As we approached Downtown Tulsa, we
saw two distinct power flashes occur downstream along the Arkansas
River, most likely due to the RFD winds. Since it was night, I wasn't
able to get any usable video or pictures. We stopped in the Catoosa
area as the storm approached US-412 near Inola. We decided to let it
pass, so we could have a chance of a visual. We cautiously moved east
on US-412 keeping a distance of about 2-4 miles from the storm. Just
as we passed the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System, we
spooted a well-defined lowering and a funnel.
2:15am (0710 UTC)
We continued to follow the storm east on US-412.
We stooped that the Chouteau Bend Access Area on Ft. Gibson Lake (where
the Cherokee Turnpike and US-412 split heading east) about 4 miles from
Locust Grove. A tornado had touched down somewhere near Maize and
Murphy producing damage. We debated heading east on US-412 or the
Cherokee Turnpike. The terrain becomes very hily with bad spotting
areas. While I was on the phone with KOTv, we spotted a wall cloud and
funnel cloud followed about one minute later by 4-6 power flahses 5
miles east of us. Upon further analysis, the power flashes were most
likely due to the RFD. We drove through Locust Gove later looking for
damage, but found none. Power was still on in town, too. We followed
Storm-B east on the Cherokee Turnpike into Delaware County. The storm
began to quickly weaken as it approached the Arkansas border. We broke
off the chase and headed home at about 2:50am.
5:00am (1000 UTC)
After dropping off video at KOTV, we finally arrived back home in Glenpool. We sustained no damage even thankfully.
SUMMARY:
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Wow! What a day! After 3+ years, the my tornado-less streak (at least
confirmed tornadoes) has ended. I have to thank Kyle for coming down
and chasing with me, if was fun. If he hadn't have come down from
Kansas City, I probably would not have chased in Kansas that day.
Instead, I would have chased the long-track beast in Oklahoma, or more
likely, I would have been working in-studio all ngith, which still
would have been good because it would have provided some big-time
experience for me.
As of the writing of this summary,
NWS-Wichita has concluded that the tornadoes in south-central Kansas
reached a maximum of F3 in the vicinity of Argonia and Conway Springs.
Many homes were destroyed, and there were some injuries. We beliveve
we saw 8 seaparate touchdowns from Storm-A. NWS-ICT was able to find 9
separate damage paths during their survey.
NWS-Tulsa found F3 damage in Creek
County and F1 damage 5.8 miles SW of Locust Grove. During the time
Storm-B was in NWS-TSA's CWA, they found 6 damage paths. Storm-B also
produced tornadoes back in the OKC area near Calumet, including an
anti-cyclonic tornado.
Easily, this has been the best chase of my career, thus far.
Final tornado count for the day: 9
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