Great Bend KS

May 6th

Had not planned on chasing this day, I had a final in the morning and was not too excited about the day, however after my final got over around 11:30, Sean and Katie McMullen called and had decided to chase, provided I got done with my test in enough time I determined it would maybe be worth the short trip down there. We started out targeting the Ness City area, thoug along the way we pondered staying put in the Philipsburg area, though we stuck with the original target and arived just as a high based storm was reaching the area. Provided it was the only storm in the area, and it was working into better air, we stuck with it. As it hit the better air it started to increase in intensity, though still mainly outflow dominated. While just NW of Great Bend we noted a nice little notch in the line, allowing for strong moist East winds to interact with the outflow creating an area of enhanced LowLevel rotation. Soon after noticing this the storm went tornado warned. We stuck with this notch and area of rotation well East of Great Bend witnessing many gustnadoes and strong winds, though a few miles NE of Great Bend we noted a large bowl within the area of enhanced LL rotation, just below the bowl there was a powerflash, provided the plethora of dust in the air and lack of condensation it is tough to confirm rather or not it was indeed a tornado, though provided the large rotating bowl and funnel above the powerflash it's quite likely it was indeed a tornado. The storm was moving quite quickly, so much of the time there was no time to stop and take photo's, thus I don't have pics of the powerflash, nor did I have the video camera rolling, though I turned it on right after the powerflash and caught the tail end of the bowl/funnel on video.

The Following are just pics of the outflow and bottom side of the shelf South of Ness City.

Sean and the Rental for the Day.

These photos are just NW of Great Bend, here the storm interacted with the more moist boundary layer and strengthend.

Same location of the above 2 pics, this is the first notch the storm produced.

Same notch, just further East now very near Great Bend.

Here is where the due east winds intereacted with the outflow, the motion in this area was insane.

Here is a poor video grab about 30 seconds after the power flash. Will never know if it was indeed a tornado or not, but it doesn't really matter, regardless it was windy!!

Eventually the storm lost all notches and became purly outflow dominate, this is shortly before we left the strom.