Total Miles: 350
Tornadoes: 0
Wall Clouds: 1 (Cyclic)
Hail: Golfball
Wind: None
Well, I drove 350 miles today, and all the action ended up less than two miles south of my home. Oh well, it happens to the best. I started the day around 11:30 am and headed west out of Pittsburg, Kansas to my target area of Yates Center, Kansas. Around 3:30 pm I was sitting in Yates Center checking data, and noticed winds at my location were out of the west soutwest (Not a good thing). I made the decision to head east towards Iola, Kansas. I checked data again in Iola, Kansas and Allen County had just been included in the Kansas City area Tornado Watch. My next decision was the biggest mistake I had made all day.
I headed north out of Iola on US 169 towards Osawatomie, Kansas, thinking that I could possibly catch up with the Tornado Warned storms in central Missouri. I would have caught up with those storms, but the road network east of Osawatomie pretty much screwed me over. The only county road that would take me straight to the Missouri state line was closed for construction. At this point, I thought my chase day was a bust for sure. I finally made it to US 69 higway, but the Central Missouri storms had already booked it to my north and east and out of my reach. I made the decision to head home on US 69 highway.
As I travelled south, the huge supercells in Neosho County became more and more visible. I stopped in Pleasonton, Kansas to check data using wifi, and Nexrad was showing an awsome hook on the storm in central Neosho County. My only hope of seeing anything with this storm was hauling butt south and possibly core puching the storm.
I continued travelling south on US 69 and when I arrived in Ft. Scott, Kansas they were already sounding their storm sirens. In continued south through town, knowing that the Bourbon County tornado warned storm's inflow would soon be cut off from supercell in Neosho County. I followed State Highway 7 south through Girard, Kansas and finally saw my first wall cloud of the day to my southwest from the intersection of state highway 7 and 126. Get this, I made my way south by slipping past all the large hail and rain with these storms, so no core punch (driving through heavy rain and large hail to get to other side of storm) was necessary afterall.
In order to stay east and south of the rotating wall cloud, I headed east on K-126 Highway and then shortly I head back south to get a better vantage point. I ended up on K-103 Highway to the east of Weir, Kansas, and pretty much followed the wall cloud and Meso circulation into Missouri, near Asbury, Missouri.
I got some good still photos and video of the wall clouds I saw today. I followed the wall cloud to a location just southeast of Nashville, Missouri, on 43 highway. It was getting too dark for me to continue, so I headed for home. I will have a more complete chase account and photos posted on this chase, hopfully in a couple of days. The still photos can be seen here.
Russel Parsons
Pittsburg, Kansas
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment