April 23, 2007 - Duel Mesos and Several Strong Tornadoes NE of Wallace, KS
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Chase Summary: I left Norman in the morning with Khoi and had an intial target in SW Ks or SE Co. I liked
the potential along the developing warm front which was forecasted to be in this area, and thought storms might fire
off to the west along the dryline/higher terrain, and then move east and interact with this boundary. I also
figured there was a slight chance storms might actually fire on the boundary, and this turned out to be the case. I
somewhat ignored the models as I thought they were underforecasting the shear and definitely the CAPE in my target area.
If we were chasing strictly off the models we would've stayed in the TX panhandle, but I'm definitely starting to trust my
chaser intuition more these days. It actually took all of the patience in the world to ignore the towers in the TX panhandle
and stick with the initial target area, but I'm glad we did. Towers initially began developing near Syracuse, KS and off to
the SE along the boundary... Eventually one tower took over and we followed it to the north as it became a beautiful Lp Supercell.
Video - Part 1 (1min 53sec, 21.5 MB)
stills:
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We continued north from Tribune to Sharon Springs as the storm continued to intensify, and it began developing supercellular
characteristics. Somewhere south of Sharon Springs along 27 the storm came very close to producing a tornado as a rapidly
rotating wall cloud and funnel formed within a mile of our position.
Video - Part 2 (1min 50sec, 24.2 MB)
stills:
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After the initial close call we looked off to the east and saw another developing funnel. At first I thought a quick
occlusion had occurred, and that the main area of rotation had shifted to the east. Later I'd figure out that this was wrong,
and that this storm had developed two strong/sustained mesocyclones. We actually almost missed the first tornado which was
a very quick messy needle that touched down underneath the eastern meso. I saw it just in time, but by the time I got the
camcorder out it had lifted. We did get video of a consistent low funnel underneath the eastern meso though.
Video - Part 3 (1min 21sec, 24.4 MB)
stills:
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The storm slowed down and made a hard right turn somewhere near Sharon Springs, so we headed east on Highway 40. Somewhere
near Wallace we stopped driving and watched a beatiful tornado form underneath the western meso. This quickly turned into
a powerful stovepipe as it moved off to the North. While watching the stovepipe the eastern meso produced a large multi-vortex,
which appeared to be pretty violent at times. Two strong tornadoes were now on the ground at once! This was quickly turning
into the most incredible storm I had ever chased.
Video - Part 4 (Tornado Video, 2min 28sec, 31.6 MB)
stills:
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The initial multi-vortex to the east lifted, but very strong rotation remained. A couple minutes later this tornado would
come down again, and it turned into a large wedge while the strong stovepipe underneath the west meso stayed on the ground.
Unfortunately we were pretty much screwed as far as road options went. Our only options to the north were clay, and now mud,
farm roads, and my car definitely would've gotten stuck immediately. Earlier just pulling off to the side of the road we had
gotten stuck, but fortunately were able to get out after about ten stressful minutes and stay on the storm. The western stovepipe
died and we decided to head east in search of some kind of northern option towards the wedge.
Video - Part 5 (Tornado Video, 6min 17sec, 94.3 MB)
stills:
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I really wish we had just pulled over and tripoded somewhere, as the rest of the video is very shaky, and there was really no chance
of getting much closer to the storm. Big mistake on my part, and I'll be kicking myself for a long time since this was a very,
very rare storm and opportunity. In my defense we hadn't realized the storm had slowed down as much as it did, and it wasn't moving
away from us nearly as fast as I thought it was. We did manage to observe the formation of a new, strong tornado on the western meso,
which would eventually turn into a large cone and wedge as we drove east on highway 40.
Video - Part 6 (Tornado Video, 1min 57sec, 35.1 MB)
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As the sun was setting two tornadoes were on the ground again, as the eastern meso got it's act together. At times there was a large
wedge and cone on the ground simultaneously, and it came very close to going wedge-wedge. Unfortunately our video of this did
not turn out very well, since we were hauling it east and praying for a road to the north. Sigh... if only I had given up on
getting closer and tripoded... Oh well, we still got some video of it:
Video - Part 7 (Tornado Video, 1min 14sec, 14.0 MB)
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We eventually got on a north clay road that was dry 10 miles or so west of Winona, but by this time it was already getting dark,
and the tornadoes were getting difficult to see. We thought about night chasing for a while, but the storm was very much in the
middle of nowhere and we would've had to wait for it to cross I-70. Plus, my camcorder had run out of batteries, and the next
day looked big (at the time), so we decided to head back to Norman. All in all, one of the most memorable chases I've ever been on,
and definitely the most impressive storm tornado-wise. With a better road network who knows how amazing our video could've been... I'm
not sure if I'll ever see a storm like this again.
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