2/20/06 - Central Kansas (fiction)
Chase Partners: Corey Mead, Rich Thompson, Jared Guyer
Initial Target: Great Bend, KS
1400Z
We left Norman at 9am, and arrived at my parents house in Great Bend around 1:30 pm. It would serve as a good base with all the accomadations any chaser would need...food, shelter, internet, mother, father.
18:45Z
With a strong cap in place...there was plenty of time to fool around. First, we went to the city pool to cool off. It was already 86/76 and it was only getting hotter. They had just installed a nice waterpark with slide and even a big pirate head that fills up with water then dumps on you! It was a lot of fun, and the 75% sky obscuration from low clouds racing northward helped shield us from getting a sunburn. Convection was forecast to fire right over the area around 22-23Z...so there was no need to check data for a while.
20:00Z
Mom made us some burritos which filled our tummies full after a good hour of frolicing in the nice cool water. The danger now was that we would start to feel lazy, but the weather radio alarm alerted us to the PDS tornado watch now in place and upgrade to HIGH risk by SPC. Satellite imagery showed the outflow boundary which lied roughly along I-70 this morning had mixed out nicely with surface winds still backed a good 30 degrees. Visible imagery showed high based CU already forming over the OK panhandle as the upper shortwave trough continued to eject newd. As luck would have it, all parameters looked to be a "go" for long tracked violent tornadoes across the target zone. I told my parents to take any warnings seriously today.
20:45Z
We traveled west on K96 for a few miles, finally reaching the dryline near Rush Center. CU East of the dryline continued to grow, but you could tell the cap was holding...for now.
22:45:
Still waiting for the cap to break. SPC Mesoanalysis page shows MLCAPE bullseye up to 6000 with 0-1 srh values over 300 in the warm sector...rising to near 400 along the old outflow boundary. The RUC doesn't break out any precipitation until 03Z...but given strong heating we think cap will break.
22:48:
The cap broke. Large CB to the west and I tell you it looks like a time lapse. Only 10 miles away but better get to within updraft base view as things are going to change very fast!
03:00
Wow, what a chase. Followed a 1 mile wide wedge tornado, with perfect visibility and contrast NEWD to near Hastings, NE. It was on the ground the entire time, with periodic satellite tornadoes swirling around the meso. At one time, there were 6 tornadoes on the ground at a time. It will be hard to top this one, a chase for the ages.
Initial Target: Great Bend, KS
1400Z
We left Norman at 9am, and arrived at my parents house in Great Bend around 1:30 pm. It would serve as a good base with all the accomadations any chaser would need...food, shelter, internet, mother, father.
18:45Z
With a strong cap in place...there was plenty of time to fool around. First, we went to the city pool to cool off. It was already 86/76 and it was only getting hotter. They had just installed a nice waterpark with slide and even a big pirate head that fills up with water then dumps on you! It was a lot of fun, and the 75% sky obscuration from low clouds racing northward helped shield us from getting a sunburn. Convection was forecast to fire right over the area around 22-23Z...so there was no need to check data for a while.
20:00Z
Mom made us some burritos which filled our tummies full after a good hour of frolicing in the nice cool water. The danger now was that we would start to feel lazy, but the weather radio alarm alerted us to the PDS tornado watch now in place and upgrade to HIGH risk by SPC. Satellite imagery showed the outflow boundary which lied roughly along I-70 this morning had mixed out nicely with surface winds still backed a good 30 degrees. Visible imagery showed high based CU already forming over the OK panhandle as the upper shortwave trough continued to eject newd. As luck would have it, all parameters looked to be a "go" for long tracked violent tornadoes across the target zone. I told my parents to take any warnings seriously today.
20:45Z
We traveled west on K96 for a few miles, finally reaching the dryline near Rush Center. CU East of the dryline continued to grow, but you could tell the cap was holding...for now.
22:45:
Still waiting for the cap to break. SPC Mesoanalysis page shows MLCAPE bullseye up to 6000 with 0-1 srh values over 300 in the warm sector...rising to near 400 along the old outflow boundary. The RUC doesn't break out any precipitation until 03Z...but given strong heating we think cap will break.
22:48:
The cap broke. Large CB to the west and I tell you it looks like a time lapse. Only 10 miles away but better get to within updraft base view as things are going to change very fast!
03:00
Wow, what a chase. Followed a 1 mile wide wedge tornado, with perfect visibility and contrast NEWD to near Hastings, NE. It was on the ground the entire time, with periodic satellite tornadoes swirling around the meso. At one time, there were 6 tornadoes on the ground at a time. It will be hard to top this one, a chase for the ages.
