thursday, may 08, 2003
northernmost supercell near alma & paxico ks
supercell 2 (near silver lake) and supercell 3 (near overbrook)
radar
work it katie!
chase log:
this set-up had some similarities to may 4's event. needless to say i didn't see much... a
big disappointment considering a combination of 4000 mlcape, 70kts of deep
shear, and other tornado-worthy parameters existed. thick haze and
warp-speed storm motions made it tough to find much success. i started the
day in council grove. after the warm front moved through, i made the
mistake of moving north to junction city… where i was more confident
initiation would occur. struggling towers gave way to full-blown
north-to-south initiation by about 5:00pm. i received some mis-information
that things farther south were "lining out"... which was all the more reason
to stay put. in actuality, an arc of five intense, tightly-packed
supercells had evolved. perhaps due to their configuration, only two of
these would be efficient tornado producers. however, the fact that the warm
front stalled by mid-afternoon kept kansas city in the cool air and safe
from another potentially devastating event.
the only remarkable portion of the chase occurred near the town of paxico around 6:00… when i observed the unremarkable updraft base of the northernmost storm for about five minutes, and then got sideswiped by 70+mph outflow from the ffd of the next supercell to the south. i may have seen the lawrence tornado had i punched that storm's core; i instead opted to get out ahead of it, but by that time it had evaporated. |