Wednesday, May 23, 2007 Hillsboro, Kansas Wall Cloud

Departed Pittsburg, Kansas: 1:00 P.M. May 23, 2007
Arrived Pittsburg, Kansas: 11:00 P.M. May 23, 2007
Total Time On Road: 10 Hours
Total Miles:

Tornadoes: 00
Wall Clouds: 01
Supercells: 01
Hail: None
Flooding: None


Today started out with a Slight Risk of severe thunderstorms over Central Kansas, and my chase target of the day being Wichita, Kansas. The only problem with today was that I could not leave Pittsburg, Kansas until about 1:00 P.M. This put me in a bind for time, but I decided to make the trek to the Wichita area anyway, since I would still have plenty of daylight left to see storms. I'm glad I did decide to make this trip, as you will see later.

By the time I arrived in Wichita, the Wichita National Weather Service office issued tornado warnings for a storm cell to the southwest of Hutchinson, Kansas. I planned a route so that I could intercept this storm, to the northwest of Newton, Kansas. I first saw the wall cloud associated with this storm, near the intersection of Arrowhead Road and 27th Aveunue, or about 4 miles north of Hesston, Kansas. I took a few photographs and video of the wall cloud, until the mosquitoes and rain drove me on down the road. I was just about eaten alive :)

I stayed well ahead of the rotating updraft of this storm. I took more photographs of the wall cloud from near the intersection of 150th Road and Eagle Road or approximately 3 miles northeast of Goessel, Kansas. I continued to stay out in front of the storm, and I finally let it get much closer to me, about 4 miles south of Hillsboro, Kansas. I let the wall cloud/updraft get to within 1/4 mile of me at that intersection of 150th Street and Indigo Road, 4 miles south of Hillsboro.



I have never seen such awesome vertical motion of scud clouds being drawn into the updraft of a severe thunderstorm, than I saw with this storm. If anyone wants to watch some great video of this, just let me know. I was just amazed at what was happening just 1/4 mile away from me. I also noticed that the inflow winds into this storm was really cold, where it should have been very warm and moist winds. This is one storm that I will not forget for a very long time, as the vertical motion in the clouds at it's updraft was just jaw dropping.


I dropped back south from Hillsboro, Kansas, in hopes to get some good photographs of this storm's shelf cloud. I got a few photos of the shelf cloud, with the beautiful Kansas Flint Hills in the background.


The Kansas Flint Hills will always be one of my favorite places to chase severe thunderstorms. Those people who always say that Kansas is just an ugly blah State, have never apparently traveled through the rolling green carpet of the Kansas Flint Hills. Wow, what a chase!! No tornadoes today, but one awesome rotating supercell that more than made up for it.


Russel Parsons
Pittsburg, Kansas

Sunday, May 06, 2007 Arcadia, Kansas Wall Cloud

Departed Pittsburg, Kansas: 5:00 P.M. May 06, 2007
Arrived Pittsburg, Kansas: 10:30 P.M. May 06, 2007
Total Time On Road: 5.5 Hours
Total Miles: 50

Tornadoes: 00
Wall Clouds: 02
Supercells: 02
Hail: Dime
Flooding: None


Today was more of a local storm spotting role, than that of a storm chase. Scattered storms started developing near Nevada, Missouri, and cumulus cloud towers were also developing in Western Crawford County, Kansas. I decided I would start driving west towards the cumulus towers located in the western part of the county. I wasn't really expecting much in the way of severe weather today, but even with the smallest chances of severe weather around home, you figure that I will be there.

I first witnessed a decent storm near Greenbush, Kansas. The updraft consisted of a large rain free base, but it never did develop a wall cloud. I played around with this storm until it finally weakened east of Walnut, Kansas. I decided to head towards another stronger storm near Arma, Kansas.

This storm had a small wall cloud that I witnessed between Mulberry and Arcadia, Kansas, near the Kansas/Missouri state line. I got some photographs of this wall cloud, and I noticed more storms developing to my southwest. I drove west out of Arcadia, Kansas, and I ran into some very heavy rainfall and dime sized hail approximately four miles west of town.



Storms continued to pop up to the southwest of my location, so I continued to get into a position to see what was going on with them. Mainly just heavy rain and small hail. The sun soon set, and I decided to stay out to keep an eye on one last strong storm cell that had moved north of Arma, Kansas. This cell had dropped some large hail over the town of Girard, Kansas, as it passed over.

Two miles north of Arma, Kansas, I pulled off of U.S. 69 highway, where I was keeping an eye on a wall cloud with a beaver's tail. I could not tell if it was rotating, since I could only see it during flashes of lightning. I did get some still photographs of the wall cloud, by leaving the shutter on my camera open and letting lightning light up the surroundings. Spotting after dark can be real tricky, but once again my XM WeatherWorx radar sitting beside me came in real handy!


This chase was really enjoyable, since I haven't chased this close to home for quite some time. I really wish we would get some of the good stuff around home every so often :) I was rewarded today with a small wall cloud, and some good old fashioned thunderstorms.

Russel Parsons
Pittsburg, Kansas