Reports & Pictures - Chase Day 22

[Paul Sherman]

Everything happens on a changeover day it seems and this year went against us. The bonus was a few Supercells for the Newbies and crazy ass lightning. Our cell even got tornado warned in the darkness with a nice Couplet just to our west of Kileen. The ohters have some nice Lightning shots, and be prepared for some absolutely beautiful Tornado & Structure shots from Nathan who was on the Ardmore cell.

Paul S

[Arron]

Couple of lightning shots for ya!

[D-J-V]

Pretty shattered!

Mostly took video today which will take a while to go through and edit. Great bonus day though! Have attached one of my lighting pics, its a good start! loved night chasing and glad we attempted to go south and west to try and get behind the last cell of the day shame it moved south east, what the f**k

Now time for some well deserved shut eye in the almost 100% humidity...cranks air con up!!!

[grab my graupel]

Awesome! pictures again, thanks guys

[Gorky]

Original Chase target as of Yesterday was Topeka, Kansas. I even shot up to Salina yesterday to be in position. Looked at the morning models and the veered winds didn't appeal to me at all (or the SPC who never put out more than a Severe Thunderstorm watch). I liked the combination of good helicity and cape near Ardmore but the obvious concern was the cap. Well 'he who dares wins' more often than not leads to a bust in Storm Chasing but luckily not today. Still, a 5 hour drive down I35 commenced!

I was sat at a scenic turnout midway between Ardmore and Davis watching the Topeka radar lighting up. Multiple tornadoes up there as the winds ended up backing very nicely contrary to early morning models which only progged a slight improvement. It was about 5:30 before the first TCU started to really look like they would break the cap and at about 6pm, the storm was Severe Thunderstorm warned as I drove right beneath the bears cage through Davis. As I got through Sulphur, I noted a brief needle funnel over halfway to the ground. I drove to the top of the hill and pulled over but it had dissipated having apparently briefly touched down. I sat on the hill East of Sulphur and watched the RFD drive in and spin the meso crazy fast just a hundred yards north of me over a field. How it didn't drop I don't know as it was very quick motion. Lots of lowerings and a couple of funnels but no touchdown. I moved East to a N/S highway (7 I think) where I witnessed a multivortex funnel to my West with 2 funnels over halfway to the ground and a 3rd funnel to the north shown below from a separate mesocyclone.

I moved north and repositioned and then managed to lock myself out of the car. Whilst figuring out I could get back in using the keyless lock system, another tornado dropped down. My camera was facing at it, stuck in the car but not being able to get in, I couldn't set manual focus and the video moved between in focus and out.... This tornado was fairly brief before the storm reorganised with 2 more notable mesocyclones both producing lowerings/funnels. There were quarter sized hailstones and slightly larger around this area.

As I moved East, the storm consolodated one ground scraping wall cloud which rotated unbelievably fast. The photo obviously doesn't do this justice but I have some amazing video showing this. The RFD cut driving this rotation was very well pronounced. I'm sure there were multiple spinups going on under this but it was difficult to make out at this distance.

AS I was repositioning East of the storm for another intercept, it took a downward turn. I punched the core North and on the other side, got a view of the amazing Ada supercell which was really ramping up. One quick shot before I drove much closer.

The Meso was really cranking on this storm. I'm sure there is a very large tornado on the ground behind the trees but being east of I35, there's often not much place to take photos from.

I finally found a relatively clear area and indeed, there is a nice cone tornado in progress.

As the storm moved north, I wanted to jump ahead for some lightning shots, but the road options were slim. Checked into a La Quinta in Ada. In good company with dozens of other chasers and the TIV2 is parked in the car park Good day though it cost me probably a full tank of gas more than just staying up near Topeka

[grab my graupel]

Amazing scenes I love seeing all the pictures from the Storm chases. Some of them are out of this world.

Nice one, guys

[John Hanrahan]

Amazing pics there Nathan.

Just the one lightning pic from me. Trying to fugure out where buttons are on new camera in pitch black cost me a few opportunities.

[Arron]

Awesome shots there Nathan!

[SteveB]

Fantastic stuff Nathan.

[dogs32]

well done Nathan....awesome mate..

we had some fantastic stuff our self...

shame there isnt more people appreciating these pics..well done

[NL]

Great to see some supercell action in what has been quite a miserable May for (tornadic) storms, but what storms have been around have made some excellent photo's especially Nathans latest additions. Looking forward to seeing some great shots of todays storms which the SPC have given a moderate risk....

[pottyprof]

Great photo's everyone. Amazing structure on Nathan's storm. Well done !!

[ZONE 51]

impressive photos there! great stuff, must be incredibly exciting and scary!!