Day 6 Reports & Pictures

[Paul Sherman]

Started the day in Alva (Ok) and watched the 1st cell initiate on this day near to Pratt (Ks) followed this Supercell all the way to North Central Kansas, this was our big mistake on this day, we should have stairstepped the line of Supercells, as the ones further down the line were producing Tornadoes, we learned our lesson the next day with the rain wrapped wedge Tornado on the Kansas & Oklahoma Border.

- The Supercell we chased for nearly 7 hours

- High Risk On a Saturday = Chaser Circus & Traffic Jams

Paul Sherman

[AudMun]

My first high risk day and it amazed me how many people suddenly arrived to chase the storms. No end of traffic jams and cars just stopping anywhere they could to watch the storms develop. With officials closing roads in some areas it made movement difficult sometimes but still some good photos including some significant tornado damage in Claflin.

[Supacell]

Great pics again guys. Thanks for keeping us updated - its been a interesting read these past few days - keep it up and have fun.

[Stuart]

Great pics keep them caming

[Somerset Squall]

Nice photos, some really stunning shots so far. Keep up the good work.

[pottyprof]

Great photos once again..

[Mammatus]

Some great photos guys! Keep them coming in. Love the two middle pics AudMun.

Hi Paul, (regarding your high risk chase on Saturday) - your photo clearly shows lots of traffic, are most of these storm chasers?

Mammatus

[Paul Sherman]

Hi Gav

Every single car we encoutered in Kansas was a Chaser, at one point we were in a scene out of twister with 3 or 4 cars in front and behind us flying down dirt tracks, when we took the east option and found the paved highway, a 1/2 mile line of Chasers were heading into the storm, incredible scenes.

Paul S

[kold weather]

That does sound really cool, bet that sor tof situation tests your driving skills though, must need to be so alert!

At least twister was right about something then Paul!

[SnowJoke]

Great photos there. Really gives the saying " The Plains - Place where the Earth meets the Sky! "

Those photographs really give you a perspective on how low these clouds actually come downward, looks like the sky is gonna fall on your head!

[Gorky]

Here's some pics from the first Supercell.

Distant Funnel Cloud

Zoomed in a bit

The time of the second shot and out location corresponds with the following SPC report, so perhaps there was circulation on the ground. - If so Tornado Count = 2

2220 4 SW STAFFORD STAFFORD KS 3792 9865 BRIEF TOUCHDOWN. MULTIPLE REPORTS RECEIVED (DDC)

Attention was then drawn to a rapidly rotating wall cloud which may or may not have touched down. Again there is an SPC report still to be confirmed with reports of minor damage in the area.

2230 2 SSW STAFFORD STAFFORD KS 3794 9861 LARGE WALL CLOUD WITH MULTIPLE VORTICES. (DDC)

Rotating Wall Cloud

Video: (Yay Trees )

Most of the rest of the day was filmed on video camera which will take me a while to process. We were in Clafin later in the evening when a tornado was reported 4 miles NW. I'm fairly sure I saw at least a large wall cloud illuminated by lightning at one point so I'll have to see if I have it caught on camera.

[pottyprof]

I love the trees Nathan.. Wonderful video!!!!!

That wall cloud's not bad either..

[Gorky]

Seems like that wall cloud I posted above was doing damage at the surface, despite no apparent debris from our range.

Just spotted this on the SPC 2007 Deadly tornado page:

20 May 5 05:30 PM 2 SSW Stafford KS 1 Fatality F3 WT234

Suspected 2-mile wide path...several homes damaged or destroyed.

The 5:30pm CST is 6 minutes after that video I posted above. The image I took closest to the reported time was at 22:28:38 BST and is shown below. There is a 5 minute gap with no images taken after this so I may have switched to video camera at this point. I will check over the footage later this day to see if there is anything more incriminating. I am very surprised to see a rating of F3 and a fatality given what we were looking at... A great looking wall cloud but I had no idea it was doing damage at the surface. I've been unable to find a damage survey yet but will keep an eye out.

The only other conclusion I can come to is that the SPC might have screwed up and listed the fatality with the wrong tornado information... I guess I'll wait and see for now but I think that has been on the main spc page for a few days now.

[pottyprof]

Not sure if this is of any use in your research Nathan..

http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/search.php?searchid=55535

Michael O'Keeffe mentions a small white tornado..

It could be that the SPC have got things mixed up as a deputy from Stafford got caught up in the Greensburg tornado

Watson said among the dead was a sheriff's deputy in nearby Stafford County who was driving to Greensburg to help out after the town was struck.

http://www.hfxnews.ca/index.cfm?sid=27637&sc=89