6/5/04 Central KS Supercell -- storm chase by Jon Davies and Jim Reed
A northwest flow setup and area of convergence in central Kansas yielded a surprisingly beautiful supercell on Saturday 6/5/04. The storm moved due south from the Great Bend area to the Oklahoma border, becoming a large "flying saucer" in the sky and dropping baseball size hail.
Jim Reed and I followed the storm from western Reno county southward. A _big_ thanks goes to Paul Sirvatka and a group of College of DuPage chasers who helped push us out of a hole when the dirt road next to a culvert collapsed, sinking one of our front tires... Without their help, we would have been stuck awhile and missed the prettiest part of the storm (Thanks guys!).
Here are some pictures taken in Kingman and Barber counties of this very pretty storm (click on thumbnails for a larger image):
The environment in central Kansas initially didn't seem that great for supercells, but got better through the late afternoon and evening. Here are the Hutchinson and Medicine Lodge RUC profiles for 23 UTC (6 pm CDT) and 01 UTC (8 pm CDT), respectively:
<HUT
23 UTC RUC analysis profile 
<P28 01 UTC RUC analysis profile
While the lowest level shear and shear/instability combinations remained poor or only marginal for tornadoes, it can be seen that the wind fields and hodographs became better for sustained supercells as the storm moved south toward Medicine Lodge. The storm-relative winds in midlevels (18-20 kts) also helped keep the precipitation out of the way for viewing if one positioned properly to the S of the storm.
Here are the SPC log reports, an early radar image, and RUC forecasts of moisture convergence and 500 mb flow for 00 UTC (7 pm CDT):
This was a subtle but very interesting northwest upper flow setup for supercells. Such sharp NW flow (as opposed to WNW flow) is rarely favorable for tornadoes (possibly because precipitation from storms tends to rain into their inflow regions, making inflow too cool in lowest levels), but can produce pretty storms given the right setup, as seen above. The 6/5/04 was a pleasant surprse that was much more photogenic than I expected.
- Jon Davies 6/6/04