Chase Log: March 07th, 2009

Click on any of the SPC products below (Convective Outlooks, Watches, or MCDs) to see the SPC's "Severe Thunderstorm Events" page pertaining to this event.

     
MAP

Total Distance: 530 miles
Target Area: W of Wichita, KS
Chase Area: Around Hesston, KS, and SW of Wichita, KS
Maximum SPC Risk category: Slight

Gabe Garfield and I headed to southern Kansas today, initially targeting anything along the boundary/front, with a preference for activity farthest east (where the better moisture resided). The obs at P28 and nearby were pretty bad, and I wasn't expecting much. We stopped in Wellington for gas, and during this stop the storm W/SW of Hutchinson rapidly intensified. We headed N on 35 then 135 towards Newton and then Hutchinson, but we missed the tornado(es) by ~20 minutes. We got near Burrton (IIRC) and headed northwards to get a better view. It looked a bit messy and quite wet, and, over the next couple of hours, we watched it move ENE, and remain rather "wet" (HPish at times, actually, with what looked like a sweeping shelf cloud on the RFD gust front as it passed N of Florence). We abandoned it near sunset and headed back towards Newton to get some food.

We finally got back into data range to notice a decent cell down in Harper county, shortly before hearing of a tornado warning for that area. We postponed food to intercept it. From radar views, it looked to be LP in nature, with the best rotation occasionally displaced some ways S of the precipitation in relatively classic LP fashion. We drove through western ICT and towards Viola to get into position. We ended up stopping a just NE of Viola on Hwy 2/42 to watch it... At the time, it had a rather gorgeous appearance, with a decent wall-cloud underneath. The lack of low cloud-cover helped to make the updraft sides quite visible, and the moonlight and stars made for a very nice scene. The storm began to weaken after watching it for ~10+ minutes, and we called it a night.

Overall, it was an enjoyable chase. It stinks to have missed the HUT tornadoes by 15-20 minutes, but at least we went out and were able to see the storm. I wasn't too "fulfilled" after following that wet supercell (wet classic? sometimes looked HP), though it did exhibit some very nice banding structure while it was still W of I135. I did very much enjoy the LP after dark (in the moonlight) SW of ICT, however! For some reason, I dig those -- and I've seen a few in the past couple of years -- and it really helped to cap off a nice, albeit tornado-less, chase.

Bonus to Gabe for convincing me to head out today. I had very low expectations, but obviously gave it enough of a chance to drive out there. I'm quite surprised that supercell was the mode for some time, since I can't remember too many situations in which we saw such a storm mode with storms moving along a front... In my experiences chasing, it seems that such an alignment of the front and storm motion / deep-layer shear quickly yields line segments or a backbuilding, training QLCS-type organization, particularly when we have such strong upper-level flow to aid downshear seeding. Instead, we managed to sustain some supercells despite such conditions... Heck, I'll take it!