Kansas Cold Core Chase
2/24/07
Sean and Katie McMullen and I left early this morning with a initial target of Emporia realizing we would probably be fine tuning our target on the way down there. While making the trip through the low level clouds and fog North of I-70 it became apparent we would need to be farther W then Emporia, so we decided to head to the area around Marion. We couldn't have timed it any better as we arrived just as the first tower began to establish itself. We watched a couple storms try to do the whole Cold Core thing around Marion one just to the West as well as one just to the East of town. From there we continued to follow the storms to the North as they beard down on the Hope area. Some where around there we ran into chasers Rich and Ryan Thies and Brian Stertz and chased with them for a while. We saw numerous bases that were interesting by CC standards today. We were really excited on one occasion today when an area of real strong rotation developed and a stretched funnel angled towards the ground, it did not last real long but sure got are hearts racing for a little while. While looking back on the day I'm not sure what made it tough for these storms to become tornadic however in my book I think it was a succesful chase, it was not only my first true cold core chase, but also the first time using my new SLR on a chase, and after all its still February
This is the base of the first storm of the day. Picture was taken about 1 mile west of Marion. The storm was tornado warned at the time and while very weak rotation was present nothing really became of it.
Another base south of Hope, KS.
This was the most exciting part of the chase, this stretched funnel formed and was rotating extremely fast, it sure got are hearts racing for a little bit.
Funnel since dissapated but the area of rotation was still present.
Same storm that produced the funnel only about 20 minutes later, it still had indications of weak rotation but nothing iminent.
Sean shot excellent video of the funnel