Date: May 11, 2014
Time: 2:30 - 10:00 PM CDT
Place: Dodge City, Kinsley, Greensburg, Belpre, Pratt, Sawyer, Kansas
Distance: 1256 mi (472 positioning, 256 chasing, 528 to home)
Camera: T3i, GoPro3 Silver, Lumix
Warnings: SVR, TOR
Rating: S5

Forecast and Set Up

This setup didn’t really catch my eye until it was a couple days away. It turned out to be one of the most fun chases of the year. A big ol’ upper level trough was parked over the four-corners, bringing a swift southwest jet over Kansas and Nebraska. During the preceding days, it became pretty obvious that the warm front in southern Nebraska would be the primary tornado play. But that target just wasn't practical for us. Instead, we focused on the dryline and developing surface low in west central Kansas. A very strong cap was the main concern, but with a good amount of CAPE (approaching 3000 J/Kg), excellent shear (200 m2/s2 for the lowest kilometer), and deepening surface low backing winds towards the west (increasing dryline convergence), I was very enthusiastic about the day.

The previous evening after work, we made a beautiful evening drive from ABQ, across the northern New Mexico plains, into Liberal, KS. Thus, this morning we were able to get a lazy start - leisurely driving to the target (Dodge City). I like having a B-roll theme for the day, so along the way we stopped in every tiny town to film the churches – their ubiquity being either comforting or oppressive, depending on your perspective.

During the morning, the High Resolution Rapid Refresh model (HRRR) showed very consistent dryline initiation near Dodge City at around 3PM. At 1:30 in Meade, KS, we crossed into the moist side of the dryline just as the first towers were beginning to form. Winds were very gusty out of the south and southeast, already starting to back as the nearby low deepened. Within the next hour, the HRRR was proven remarkably accurate. Storms were firing just to the southwest of Dodge City and the chase was on!

The Chase

To start the chase, we drove up Hwy 283 until we were just a few miles south of Dodge City. From this vantage point we could sit stationary while multiple cells skirted just to our west and north. These initial storms trained along the dryline – failing to push east into the deeper moisture. That, coupled with the large temperature/dewpoint differential (90oF/65oF), meant that storm bases were quite high. Even though the tornado potential here was initially pretty low, we did note a very nice RFD cut in one of the elevated bases.

After about 45 minutes, Toni needed a peepee stop. We drove into the precip in Dodge City, and by the time she was ready to continue a new more robust storm was closing in with a ragged but surprisingly low wall cloud. Storm bases were already starting to lower as training storms had significantly cooled the immediate area – increasing tornado chances. There was lots of turbulent motion in this wallcloud, but we never observed any real organized rotation as we stair-stepped northeast out of Dodge City in pursuit. Finally, in Kinsley, we gave up on this storm as it was becoming outflow dominant. Fortunately, there were plenty of other storms in the area to choose from.

But with choice comes the potential to choose poorly, and that’s exactly what I did next. If we'd just stayed at that exact spot near Kinsley, we would have watched 2 weak tornadoes and 4 supercells pass just to our north - without having to budge. Unfortunately, I had my eyes set on a gorgeous looking radar presentation of a supercell 40 miles to the south with clear inflow. All the radar-pattern-recognition in my brain said this was the storm to be on. So south we went, leaving behind Kinsley and an array of approaching, but messy-looking, storms.

My feelings sunk as we arrived near Greensburg and we got our first view on the target storm base. It was a very elevated, weak looking mess. I’d been fooled - what was beautiful on radar was much less impressive in real life. I felt safe enough to let the storm pass directly overhead, and we picked up some pea hail and observed decent rotation high up in the storm. Not wanting to give up on this cell (and being well out of position for storms that were now looking better back in Kinsley), we decided to pursue east to Pratt and then north on Hwy 281. Along the way, we got stuck behind some DOW trucks and chase tour vans (incredibly, the first chasers we'd seen all day). As we approached St. Johns, our storm had some remarkable mammatus and beautiful LP-ish structure. But it was clearly not about to drop a tornado.

Literally the moment we arrived at the 50/281 intersection, a storm back to the west in Kinsley went tornado warned. We were back in business - directly downstream from the approaching storm. Since daylight was quickly fading, we shot west on Hwy 50 for about 15 miles to get a better view (usually I like to sit well ahead and get timelapse of the approach). Near Macksville, we pulled off onto the dirt grid and sat just below the tip of the supercell's hook. The beefy RFD gust front was a beautiful sight. There was much more upward surging motion rather than rotation, but we might have seen a very brief funnel as the storm moved directly to our north.

We repositioned just a couple miles west as the next supercell in line was now heading directly for us. Just north of Belpre, we sat for 20 minutes as an incredibly intimidating wallcloud and RFD surged directly towards us. A low, juicy inflow tail fed into the storm from the north, and it was clear that any tornado would be really hard to glimpse in the rain and deepening evening. Sitting in the relatively calm air in front of the storm, with a clear escape grid to the east, watching it rush ominously at us, was a perfect mix of fun and fear.

As the gust front made its final approach, we began to hear a rushing-water roar of the approaching wind. Just to our south, the gust front had already crossed the road and was kicking up some very nice gustnadoes in and around Belpre. We already had the Crosstrek facing east for escape, so we waited until the very last second and then began our dash away from the chaos behind us. We blasted 2, then 3 miles east on the dirt grid, and the storm still hadn’t fallen behind. It was keeping pace at 60 MPH! To make matters more interesting, there was a thick layer of powdery dust on the road which was blowing and collecting into miniature dunes. Fortunately, the Crosstrek was able to keep traction and we eventually managed to pull a mile ahead of the storm before cutting south - completing our escape and capping a great chase.

Retracing our path down Hwy 281, we arrived in Pratt to gas up and start the long trip back to ABQ. But the weather had different plans. The cold front was now catching up to the dryline and creating an intense line of storms to our west, with areas of big hail and rotation. Remembering our lesson from Wichita on April 14, 2012, I decided to play it safe and try to skirt around the tail end of the line. This was tricky, since the line kept back-building south about as fast as we could drive.

In Sawyer, we pulled off to watch some of the most incredible lightning I've ever seen. A tornado-warned supercell embedded in the line was putting on a massive light show. The nearly constant lightning also provided good visibility on storm structure, and this was definitely the neatest “stacked plates” meso I have witnessed to date. Continuing south, we made it to Hwy 160 and punched west through the non-severe tail end of the line. Liberal, KS was once again our base for the night, and early the next morning we made good time into Albuquerque.

Recap, Filmmaking Notes, and Lessons Learned