Kansas Chase Recap 4/24
A shelf cloud near Brookville, KS. April 24, 2015
A trip to the central Plains. Leading up to this chase day, it was fairly clear that a relatively small geographical area in Kansas would be under the threat for severe weather.
A cluster of thunderstorms, with one persistent supercell structure, formed in north-central Kansas during the afternoon. Although there were a few brief tornado reports, I was not able to catch any of these tornadoes. Instead, I paralleled the storm to the south and caught quite a bit of wall and shelf clouds.
The road network became a bit of a challenge, but this allowed me to follow some seemingly random dirt roads around breathtaking views. I ended up about Wilson Lake, where there were sharp cutoffs from mountains to deep valleys. Although I occasionally lost view of the storm, the scenery in itself made this chase very memorable.
In the future, I’m toying with rating potential chase days before they happen. With a rating scale of some sorts. I did not expect yesterday to be the best chase day in terms of tornadoes, so there were no disappointments. Also, going back to yesterday, the tornado threat in Texas ended up verifying below most expectations:
The next chase is setting up for tomorrow, most likely in central Texas. A warm front will likely be draped near the Red River Valley and the central border between Oklahoma and Texas. A dryline extending southward into Texas is where I think the most robust convection will form. There is a bit of a tornado threat, but some mesoscale details still need to be sorted out. At the very least, if there are tornadoes, they will probably be more easily viewed than the ones were in Kansas yesterday.
