My 2016 storm chasing tour started with a bang!
This year is a little bit different as we will be going it alone, me and 2 friends (one of whom knows what he’s doing) will be chasing storms without adult supervision!
The week has started with a bang, all the forcasts point to perfect conditions for severe weather in Tornado Alley.
http://www.weathersnapshot.com/severe-weather-returns-tornado-alley/
First bit of luck was an upgrade to our car, we have some V8 muscle and 4 wheel drive to keep us safe.
The day started with a pretty easy set up drive to Goodland KS about 3 hours from our start in Denver.
Dan got us to the perfect spot to asses our next move with the models suggesting suggesting SouthWest Kansas. After a bit of lunch it was a drive due South to Syracuse where we started to see the first true Tower clouds of the afternoon spring up.
While in Syracuse we came across a few fellow chasers with much more experience than us, definitely a good sign. Shortly after the first storm of the day got fired up.
This was our first storm of the day just north of Syracuse KS
Because Dan had got us for the perfect set up location we were some of the first chasers on the scene as the little storm we had been watching developed into a supercell.
We tracked this north to just past Leoti KS.
After a very safe beginners core punch through some hail the size of marbles we were in position for our storm for the day and I am going to let the photos do the talking.
What started out as a few isolated storms consolidated for a pretty spectacular show.
The blue circle is us and the red box is a tornado warning
I think this is a safe distance!
As well as lightning it was slightly breezy!
We asked to move after this by some very friendly police officers.
After some lightning shots we moved north and got very close to a rotating wall cloud that produced several short lived funnels.
Can you spot the funnel cloud?
As the storm developed it became even more photogenic.
After deciding to play it safe and head south to Garden City for the night this spectacular storm had a few more surprises.
Show me your mammatus
Moonrise
A great end to a great day one. Slightly disappointing when we saw on facebook this storm produced a tornado but that is the art of storm chasing, wrong place right time!
Until next time!