30 April 2003
Looking SW (from west of Augusta, KS) at developing storm in Sumner County.
Time: (1) 7:37PM CDT and (2) 7:43PM CDT.
All photos © 2003 "Chase On!" Productions.
Butler/Cowley
County, KS Chase
30 April 2003
Looking SW (from west of Augusta,
KS) at developing storm in Sumner County.
Time: (1) 7:37PM CDT and (2) 7:43PM
CDT.
All photos © 2003 "Chase On!"
Productions.
Rodney Price (camera & log)
Jana Price (driver)
Daisy Girl (our dog...along for the ride!)Our route: Left Wichita going East on Pawnee to Andover Road. North on Andover Road to US-54. East on US-54 through Augusta, then to Haverhill Road. South on Haverhill Road to Smileyburg. West on SW 210th Road to Douglass. South on US-77 through Rock. Continued south on US-77 to K-15 intersection. Then south again on US-77 to Winfield, then Arkansas City. West on US-166 to Kansas Turnpike/I-35. North on Kansas Turnpike/I-35 to Wichita.
Jana, Daisy and I intercepted the storm near Rock and Udall, KS on this night in Cowley Co. Our first leg of the chase took us to Augusta just in time to witness an absolute collapse to that first storm. (See picture below)
Looking East toward Augusta, KS of collapsing storm. Time: 7:50PM CDT.
We then headed south on Haverhill Road toward Smileyburg, looking at the rapidly intensifying storm.
Time: (1) 8:07PM CDT and (2) 8:14PM CDT. I first started to notice something suspicious as we drove west toward Douglass on SW 210th Rd. As we turned south on US-77 and headed toward Rock, we observed a nice, inflow tail to our south, running east to west. It really didn't take on a classic beaver tail appearance, but it was inflow none the less.
We drove into Rock just as the Tornado Warning was issued. We continued south on US-77, running just NE and E of the storm.
Time: 8:28PM CDT. I apologize for the blurry image. It was the best image I got of the inflow area just to the east of the wall cloud(s). Limited light + traveling at 65 mph=bad image. The storm wasn't moving very fast (~20-25 mph). Here's what it looked like at the same time on radar:
We stopped at the K-15/US-77 intersection where we were able to see a couple of lowerings/possible wall cloud but darkness fell, and it was hard to detect rotation. We had frequent lightning but even that didn't help. It was so bright that our eyes had a hard time adjusting! After a couple more minutes, with the storm approaching ever closer, we didn't like the spot we were in, so we again high tailed it south on US-77, just at the time a spotter reported a funnel cloud near Udall. We didn't see that particular feature and ended up continuing south into Winfield to get out of the way of the storm. (It was a little later we heard a report of 69mph winds north of Winfield, where we had been.)
We ended up having to go south all the way to Ark City to escape the backbuilding storm. On US-166, while traveling west toward the turnpike, we got the report of a tornado near Cambridge.
Got home a little after 11PM.
Total miles on the car: 140.
Total chase time: 3.5 hours.
Intercepting a storm visually, armed with only a cell phone, ham radio, and
a Kansas Atlas and Gazetteer: Priceless!!Copyright 2005 "Chase On!" Productions.
