Chase 4: The Beginning and The End

I'm kicking myself for not dropping my snake chasing in Greensburg, Kansas, to get on the storm that eventually wiped the town off the face of the Earth. It was fairly late in the day on Friday, so when Bob called me to tell me about storms going up in Texas and Oklahoma, I was more inclined to save gas rather than run for a storm I might not make until after dark. In retrospect, I probably would have been able to catch the storm about 30 minutes before sundown if I had bolted at that moment and hauled ass.


As it was, I dilly-dallied a bit more on the farm roads, looking for snakes. I took this picture of these deer before I found a lone gopher snake.


I eventually found my way back to highway 154, where I stopped to save a box turtle. By this time the storms were getting close, so I got out of the truck and took this picture:


This cell was not tornadic, but the one behind it sure was. This storm passed to my east. The one coming up was constantly lit up by lightening. I watched it approach with another chaser until we began to get pelted by hail. That was my cue to take off.

I drove through a driving hail storm on the way back to Dodge City. It was mostly nickel-sized, but there were a few quarter-sized stones in there too. The racket it made against the outside of my truck was deafening and scary.


When I got back and situated, I started to look at the current data streams. That's when I saw this monster hook echo. The light blue line is my path as recorded by my GPS unit. Check out this velocity scan showing a huge couplet, an almost sure sign of a monster tornado:


I could have been on that storm, although maybe only at night. Night is the scariest time to chase, if you asked me. You better have current data or a nowcaster who does, because it would be the easiest thing in the world to drive right into one of these monsters.

*****

I don't have any photos worth showing from day 3. Bob had me waiting in Perryton, Texas. We anticipated late afternoon initiation in that area, but it turned out to be a bust. The storms went up east, so I made a half-hearted effort to get on one of those. On the way I missed my turn and ended up core punching the storms over interstate 40. I finally got around them and on one storm, but it turned out to be linear, and outside some wall cloud-like looking scud clouds, all I got was the pleasure of driving the OK and TX countryside and a very long drive back home.

Total mileage for this chase: 1,556 miles.

There's a few more pictures here.