Kansas Structure and Tornado

May 22nd

What appeared to be a mediocre setup, turned out to be much more then mediocre. We knew severe storms were a given today however, mediocre upper level support and CF interaction, left us unclear of which storm mode would prevail. I chased with Sean McMullen, we left Lincoln early in the morning with a initial preliminary target of Phillipsburg KS. Arriving in early afternoon it was becoming apparent that conditions were coming together for at least a shot at a tornado or two. From Phillipsburg we noted TCU on Satellite to our W and SW with a 700mb wave working into the area so we began to work WSW, putting ourselves in position to intercept the southern most storm when it formed. Eventually that storm formed to our SW, and we intercepted it just as it was becoming svr warned. The storm appeared to struggle both on radar and visually for awhile, but after it under went a cell split the southern cell became more organized. It developed a nice Meso and a couple of promising funnels, however it was never able to complete tornadogenisis I think slow storm motions prevented the storm from fully utilizing the SE surface winds. While watching that Meso we could visually see and see on radar a new cell forming to the S of our cell. We made the short trip S to intercept the new storm, we arrived quickly due to good dirt roads. The storm displayed amazing structure along with SLOW storm motions for a long time. After being on the storm for a long while the meso became full of precip leaving us wondering if we were seeing a transition to HP monsters, however only 30 minutes or so it cleared out once again and developed a nice lowering with a RFD coming around the backside. A nice funnel developed and touched down briefly with a faint debris cloud visible, the tornado then continued for a few minutes hovering the ground before roping out before crossing the hwy.

Some images are stills, but most are video grabs.

Storms just begining to form as we were working SW

After storm had completed the split storm got organized, this funnel actually was a lot larger and extended down further but caught me off guard and it shrunk by the time I got my camera out.

Same storm as above attempting to tornado.

Storm just sat there hardly moving and really began to display nice structure.

Here you can see the original meso on the right and on the left the new storm.

Awesome structure as we rolled up on the new southern storm.

In closer under the mothership.

We were actually a little to close to get the good structure but wanted to be in position should it tornado

Still displaying awesome structure.

After watching the storm from that oil rig we noticed the lowering and associated RFD and raced north as this tornado formed.

If you look closely you can see the debris field.

It was picking up speed moving NE.

Could not get any close due to chasers that must have been stuck blocking the road so we had to film from here.

Begining to weaken.

Tornado very quickly roped out.

VIDEO CAN BE FOUND HERE