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.