Late-Night Core Punch

In retrospect, I compare Day 2 of my storm chasing expedition with a really good movie trailer: only a couple minutes of action, but enough to build unbridled anticipation for opening night.

As we packed the van at 9am, ready to depart western Oklahoma City for northern Kansas, we discover that a veteran chaser and videographer, active since ’74, will be joining the chase. His name? Jim Leonard, or “Cyclone Jim”. Really. Check out his website: www.cyclonejim.com. In addition to the mere quarter-mile wide twisters he’s seen in his day, he’s more renowed for intercepting hurricanes, those cyclones of the more 500-mile-wide variety. He has an impressive resume, including many of the storms from the 2005 hurricane season like Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. His ringtone is a tornado siren. And apparently, yesterday afternoon, the president of the National Hurricane Center asked him to be a friend on Facebook.

Good company.

Anyway, the models had predicted a pretty decent chance for action in north-central to northeast Kansas:


...including a 5% chance for tornadic activity:


Sounds small, but that 5% actually translates to a 5% chance of “one or more events occurring within 25 miles of any point during the outlook period.” Nice.

Many, but not all, of the ingredients were in place for something to happen: wind shear, atmospheric instability, strong jet stream, etc. But alas, the air was just too dry. Supercells aren’t likely to form unless dewpoints -- a measure of humidity -- are in the 60s or 70s. Dewpoints in the warned area as we’re leaving OKC? Mid-thirties. The result? Clear blue sky. Ideal conditions for blue jays to chill on street signs without a care in the world:


Luckily, strong southerly winds were blowing strongly into the region, dragging along with it moisture from the Gulf of Mexico. We parked at a gas station in Marion, Kansas, waiting for about 3 hours for something to get going. Not a whole lot going on in the sleepy town of about 2,000 people. In fact, some dude with a pad and paper happened to walk by to interview us. Turns out he worked for the local paper. Who knew we’d be so news-worthy?


We waited a little longer -- with a frisbee to keep us company -- and sure enough, dewpoints climbed, and clouds were starting to fire up:


But, as our guides noted, the clouds were just a little too fuzzy-edged. We jogged a little farther east and ran into another chasing crew at a gas station, looking at some of the explosive clouds forming now at around 7pm:


And the shape of these were striking evidence of wind shear. Clouds billowed up from the south, but strong upper-level winds out of the west were blowing them over. It almost looks like a miniature supercell:


It’s this wind shear that causes storms to rotate. A good sign, but daylight was running out. The chase was a pleasant surprise, given my attitude the day before, but it was becoming clear nothing was going to happen.

Until it did.

We’re sitting in an Applebee’s (apparently a chasers’ favorite) in Emporia, Kansas, when Klipsi, keeping a close eye on his cell phone, says in his Swiss accent, “Guess vat? There is severe warning vest of here in Salina, Kansas.”

Given the upcoming down days in preparation for Monday’s outbreak, we reached a unanimous verdict to drive west (by now it’s 10pm) into the night and check it out. After a quick 30-minute drive, our guide, Dave Holder, learns the cell has just gone “tornado warned”.

We drive to within 2 miles of the point of interest and pull over onto the side of the road, brilliant lightning absolutely everywhere. We step out of the van to get a better look…something not advisable to those blessed with a functional brain. Each time lightning strikes, we can spot classic features of a supercell off to the northwest: wall cloud, rotations aloft, “striations”, and UFO-like structure. Not to mention winds blowing away from us, towards the center of the circulation, feeding the storm. The cloud base is too high for a tornado to form (although apparently it had touched down about 30 minutes before, damaging a house in Hope, Kansas).

The most surreal part of this whole experience was the silence. Lightning was everywhere, striking probably three times per second. But we didn’t hear a single clap of thunder this entire time. According to “Cyclone Jim”, this is natural: all of the rain, wind, elements, etc., basically absorbs all of the sound waves, given our position. North of the cell is a different story.

After a few minutes of observation, the storm has drifted westward enough that we get blasted with an extremely cold, probably 40-mph wind gust from what’s called the “rear flank downdraft”. Time to go.

Not quite satisfied, we catch back up to the storm for a “core punch”: basically driving straight through the most intense part of the cell. By now the storm has weakened quite a bit -- not surprising given it’s about 4 hours after sunset -- so the most exciting thing we see is a road covered in dime-sized hail.

And that was that. My photography skills are apparently too underdeveloped (and underequipped) to have caught anything from our night chase, but a more skilled photographer than I got a nice shot:


Credit: Paul Sherman, posted on stormtrack.org

Today, we’re on our way back to Norman, Oklahoma, for some down time before our big days on Sunday/Monday. Meanwhile, our buddies Reed Timmer and Chris Chittick (the main guys from tornadovideos.net) are hitting up northern Indiana and Ohio for what looks to be a pretty solid scenario for tornadoes. That’s too far for us to drive today, but maybe we’ll at least be able to live vicariously through them. Or at least watch their live streaming video: www.tornadovideos.net/live.