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
1 comment:
That was a great chase story..and the photos as well are awesome..I do really like severe weather and hoping someday I can also go out for a chase..Thanks for sharing that story..Great post..
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