Friday, May 17, 2013

Oklahoma and Kansas Severe Storms 5/8/2013

Gene and Jason both decided to chase Wednesday as reasonable parameters were in place conducive to severe storm development.  Jason left from Clinton at around 1:30 and headed towards Woodward again trusting the RAP's placement of a cell on the TX/OK border at around 2.  Gene headed south with a target of Greensburg, KS as he was visiting family in Nebraska.

The RAP continued its accuracy as a cell went up near the border and headed just south of Woodward at around 2:45.  It formed into an LP Supercell and quickly lost steam.  A new cell began to form to the south so Jason headed that way to watch it form.  The cell quickly became severe warned and took on some interesting features.

Looking east at high-based shear funnel 10 miles east of Vici



Just after the funnel feature dissipated Jason followed the storm east and found some golf balls on the side of the road.  They had been sitting for about 10 minutes so its possible they came down closer to tennis ball size.

Golf ball size hail ~12 miles east of Vici


Deciding to start heading to the hotel for the night, Jason drove north and a new cell formed north of Woodward and produced a brief rainbow.

Looking East from 8 miles north of Woodward


As the sun began to set, some new towers had formed over Beaver creating a beautiful sunset.

Looking west at the sunset 3 miles north of Mooreland

Gene ended up on a severe-warned LP-ish supercell in the Coldwater, KS area.  The cell was rather high-based so even though it was quite active with a good deal of motion and rotation, there was no significant tornado threat.

View of the supercell to the W from US 183 a few miles S of Coldwater at 6:40 CDT:

This area, photographed at about 6:45 CDT had incredible motion, but was very high-based:

As the storm moved E, the updraft base reorganized into this interesting feature:

By 7:00 CDT the storm was weakening significantly as it moved ESE and once the hail shaft cleared the road, Gene returned N to sample some other severe storms on his way back to Nebraska.


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