May 22, 2011 Chase Log

A dryline extended from southeast Kansas into southwest Oklahoma on the afternoon of May 22, 2011.  An extremely unstable airmass, with CAPE values near 5000 j/kg, was in place ahead of the dryline across eastern Oklahoma and northwest Arkansas. In anticipation, we decided to head out together as a family to do a little storm spotting.  My kids are heaving into my chasing, as well as my wife Diane whos a seasonal chaser as well. We decided to head up into S.E Kansas and position ourselves waiting for the dryline to fire that afternoon.


 
 Diane monitored the skies while I continued to get the latest updays from the national weather service and SPC.  We continued to watch strong updrafts explode towards the west over Osage County, Oklahoma and Butler County Kansas as the cap slowly began to erode.

Turkey towers of Cumulus clouds started to spring up to our south and west.  We decided to reposition ourselves farther east into Kansas. The motion of the storms were to the northeast around 20-25 mph which made it very easy to stay ahead of the cells as they began to build. We rode along highway 166 heading for Coffeville, KS.

 By 4:30 pm, the first signs that the storms were intensifying was the occasional alert of Severe Thunderstorm warnings going out for Chautaugua and Montgomery counties.  We decided to head northward towards the one dominating cell that began to erode the other cells around it.

 North of Coffeville, we turned again along highway 160 towards Mound Valley and Altamont.  This storm began showing signs of rotation which peaked our interest.  I have to say, this was one of the easiest cells to follow given its speed and ENE direction.  The photo to the left represents the storm as it came into Mound Valley, KS.

 As we continued to drive slowly east towards Altamont, a tornado warning was issued and we searched hard for a funnel cloud underneath the base of the wall cloud.  We came in contact with other chasers following this impressive storm.

There was alot of rotation with this storm and some calls went out of a tornado touching down, but we never saw anything even though the rain curtain was light in nature and the structure was still visually seen.

By the end of the chase of our short chase, we had to leave the cells behind as it was getting late and the kids had school in the morning.  We shot down 59 south back into Oklahoma and rounded Grand Lake only to find out we missed a waterspout cross over the lake.  Heading back on 60 through Vinita and Nowata, the call came out that the cell we left behind was headed towards Joplin, MO and it was Tornado warned.  Pulling off to the side of the road, we got a chance to see the formation of supercells including the one over Joplin.  No doubt that we were witnessing it as the tornado torn through Joplin.  Out of the several supercells lines up to our east and south, three had overshooting tops which was very impressive to see at such a distance.  Total trip: 212 miles.  Time: 4 hours. 

Added: Later that night, I headed back out to capture some lightning shots from the cells as they were crossing into Missouri and Arkansas.