Saturday, May 5th, 2007 saw a fairly rare NWS high risk for severe weather over the western half of Kansas, extending up into Nebraska. I only see a few high risk scenarios per year. CAPES were near 4000 in the west central portions of KS. The atmospheric winds were exceedingly strong throughout all levels, from the surface to 250mb...from 40-80knots! A dryline was just to the west of the Ft. Hays area extending North and South. Many other charts and maps agreed that something was going to happen. I decided to us this as an opportunity to put myself in position to photograph some storms. If I only would have known what I was about to see!!!! After meeting up with my cousin and his chase team in Ellsworth Co. shortly after noon, we (5 of us in 2 vehicles) studied the radar on the laptop. Seeing storms firing near the Garden City area extending up north, we decided to head for Hays, making another directional decision there. PIC1 After reaching Hays, we saw that many of the storms were actually disappating. Surprising. A healthy looking storm was heading towards Russel. We backtracked to Russel, and headed north on Hwy 281 for a ways to set up and wait for the storm. Here are a few neat pics. The first one is of mammatus clouds. Harmless, but cool looking. They were in advance of the storm! They're always near the rear of a storm. PIC2

The next pic is of a roll cloud we passed under on our way back to Russel. PIC3 We watched the storm arrive, and a cloud began lowering! Maybe a tornado trying to form?? Nope. After watching some rotation, the cloud disappated, and the storm began to die. PIC4 Why were the storms dying?? I think that the atmospheric winds were too strong for the existing conditions. The storms appeared to be getting ripped apart upon reaching a certain height. It was cloudy most of the day in this area so the atmosphere didn't warm. Either the lapse rates wern't steep enough to outdo the winds, or the atmosphere was capped altogether. After studying the radar again, we agreed to head south where more promising storms were firing. We jaunted down Hwy 281 down to near Great Bend. This is where the action began. At one point, we drove through rain so heavy that we could only see the line on the side of the road, and we followed it. One surprising feature with all of these storms was the lack of hail...just pea size. The cloudtops were only in the 30000-40000ft range. Rather low for this time of year, but this is all that is needed with the atmospheric winds what they were, coupled with the available moisture, and approaching low pressure. We turned east on Hwy 56 and ended up past Ellinwood, near the town of Raymond. It is here that we witnessed possibly our first tornado. PIC5 It started out as a lowering, forming into a funnel, then possibly into a short lived tornado. PIC6 and PIC7 After this began to weaken, so we headed back towards the west to the Great Bend/Cheyenne Bottoms area. Here we watched multiple areas of rotation, morphing into a large V shaped tornado, just missing the small town of Claflin. It is here that my cousin makes one of his multiple broadcasts on AM 1150, updating the residents on the severity of the storm.. PIC8 After this storm, we drove north near the town of Wilson due to a reported tornado, but couldn't see anything because of the rain, and near darkness as it was after sunset now. We stopped into a gas station just north of Wilson, right off of I-70, milemarker 206. Here, people told us of a tornado that HAD JUST past right close to the convience store/gas station. They said the tornado shook the ground, and awnings!!!! From this point, my cousin dropped me off to my car and I, interestingly enough, heard on the radio a tornado warning right in the area that I was driving in. They listed off the Interstate milemarkers and I was right in the middle of it!! I never saw anything of this, though.

Here are my few last pics. PIC 9 is just some low hanging scud clouds, often referred to in the chaser community as SLC's (scary looking clouds). PIC9 These clouds are completely harmless, and are often mistakenly called in as tornados. There is no rotation or danger from them whatsoever. Another slang term in the chaser community for clouds such is these are sherrifnados. Many times, police will see these clouds and freak out, alerting the NWS, and local media to a tornado on the ground, prompting tornado sirens to falsely sound, when they are simply scud clouds such as the above pic9.

One last thought.....The thing that stands out in my mind from this chase nearly as much as the tornados are the number of stormchasers covering these storms. I bet the line was about a half mile long!! Bumper to bumper stormchasers. My chase team told me that this was nothing, as there are many different tornadic storms on this day for stormchasers to follow. A few weeks ago, a concentrated line of storms formed, and became tornadic. He tells me that the line of stormchasers was 2 MILES LONG!!!!!!! Unbelieveable!!!!! I bet I counted license tags from about 15 states this day, including Florida, California, Canada, Minnesota, NewYork, amongst others. People from all generes of life, from retirees to kids that barely looked old enough to drive. This makes for a potentially dangerous situation, one that I'm afraid someday could have bad consequences. All it takes is for ONE accident to occur, blocking off the narrow 2-lane county roads, pinning in the long line of stormchasers with a tornado roaring in their direction, bearing down upon them, with no avenue for excape! I've heard that many people whom live outside of tornado alley will plan their yearly vacations for stormchasing, in much the same way that you or I would plan on a Rocky Mountain vacation.

I've found that the farther west a storm forms, the neater it looks from a photographic and asthetic standpoint. The western plains atmosphere doesn't usually contain as much moisture as the eastern plains atmosphere does. It is out west that a LP (low-precip) severe thunderstorm can develop, allowing one to see the entire storm. Farther east, here in the eastern plains, storms often approach as a big dark shapeless blob. See my cousin's website by clicking on this link and scrolling down to his first storm pic www.agweatherwatcher.com/storm to see what an LP severe thunderstorm can look like! Its pretty amazing to see a severe storm which produces very little to no rain!

The last pic is of my cousin's laptop computer/mobile internet access/gps setup. As you can see here, we can see the storms on radar, and have our location plotted in relation to the storm. Amazing! PIC11

PIC12...Line of StormChasers

To see where I get much of my info on storms, go to www.spc.noaa.gov and click on forcast tools on the left side of the page. Then click one of the boxes on the map to see the map choices.