We (Tim Wallace, Michael Carter, Justyn Jackson, and myself) headed to Elk City, OK yesterday in hopes of some nice dryline supercells... What we got was a STRONG CAP that didn't want to break... I'll be honest, I had my doubts when we got near 7pm without anything going up... Storms would try to go up and then immediately get smashed down by the dreaded CAP... Finally a storm started to bust through near Ellis/Dewey County, OK... We finally intercepted the storm around 8:30pm in Sharon, OK... Sharon is about 10 miles south of Woodward, OK, which is where in 1947 a horrible F-5 tornado nearly wiped out the town! It was a long track monster tornado that ranks 6th all time on the deadliest US tornadoes list....
Once we got to this storm, I was amazed at the pure beauty of this near perfect LP supercell... It had the barber pole look with nice striations and nice mid-level rotation! It was kind of elevated so there wasn't much of a tornado threat with it (it was tornado warned though), but honestly I didn't care, it was AWESOME! I'll post some cool video later when I have some free time! We did continue to follow this storm past Woodward, but there was almost no lightning associated with it, so we couldn't see anything in the dark... We decided to quickly pack up shop and make our way back to Amarillo to drop off Justyn... We got back around 2am...
Currently we are on I-40 east heading towards Oklahoma City... We are about 50 miles away, where I think we are going to turn north on I-35 toward Wichita, KS... The SPC issued a Slight Risk 10% tornado.. The 10% tornado is located just south of Wichita to just north-east of Kansas City, MO... There is a LOT of potential today but I am worried how the 500mb/300mb winds are SW... I would much rather see them more west to produce tornadoes... When they are aligned like that they tend to help supercells go linear fairly quick... I'm also worried about the CAP a little!
I do think we will have a small 3-4 hour window to get on some tornadic supercells... The 15z RUC did show more westerly 500mb winds and also stronger 0-1 shear then was forecasted last night! The best tornado threat IMO is more towards Kansas City... You have more westerly 500mb/300mb winds and you are a little closer to the warm front and better 0-1 shear... I think we are going to try to get on these storms as they initiate near Wichita and move north and east... We'll try to stay on them as they head towards Kansas City! Right now I would like to get a little east and north of Wichita... If I had to pick a city right now, I would say near Emporia, KS... Maybe actually a little south and east of there... I guess that would be near Yates Center? Anyways, somewhere in that general area look pretty good to me!
In other news, today is the 6th anniversary of the Attica, KS F-2 tornado... It was featured on storm stories and it was my first official tornado... I have probably seen many before, but I never counted them because either they were at night/too far away/or just too tough to say for sure... If I have to review video to say I saw a tornado, then in my personal opinion that doesn't count! I always try to edge on the side of caution with tornadoes... Attica, KS was my first no doubter! It was a beautiful tornado that unfortunately destroyed one house... Thankfully no one was hurt or killed... If you haven't seen the video, you should check out youtube... Scott McPartland was all over this tornado and he shot some of the best tornado video I have ever seen in my life! That day I was chasing with Justyn Jackson and Derek Cody... We were also chasing with Jon Davies and Jim Reed... It was truly an honor to get to chase with those two as they are two of the best storm chaser alive! It was an amazing experience as we ended up seeing 4 tornadoes that day...
More updates to come later! Also, I just updated my tornado video from Monday on youtube... Give it a couple of hours to process and I'll release it!
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