SHORT: Chase route GCK-LBL-HHF-LTS-OUN. Intercepted occasionally photogenic supercell from inception near Hollis to N of Duke, then as it got absorbed into what became an HP “Stormzilla” NE of LTS that crossed Wichita Mountains. Activity forming SW of that merged/absorbed it after dark N of Apache.

LONG:
The day before turned into a storm-free “bustola” on the western Kansas dryline, with only distant convection to the north near sunset. Elke and I salvaged something from the 12th by heading to Monument Rocks for the late-afternoon light, then bunked down in GCK.

Today’s most straightforward storm intercept target was over the NW TX, SW OK and SE Panhandle region near CDS. We left GCK for a long but simple jaunt SSE down US-81, with lunch in Perryton. While there, storms already started firing over central and SW OK. Early initiation stinks, especially when the observer still is over 150 miles away!

A distant line of building convection hovered just above the SE horizon as we headed out of Perryton. Now we targeted the area of its prospective backbuilding into the slowly retreating late-afternoon dryline. The pre-dryline baroclinic zone upon which the storms were forming was supposed to retreat N also, after 21Z. My thinking was that the future western storms would represent the latest, highest-CAPE development, farthest removed from the threat of interference by upshear convection.

Given our distance and target area, we obviously missed the Norman tornado, not that we would have targeted specifically that needle-in-haystack HP supercell event anyway. As we reached Wellington, big towers began to backbuild on the pre-dryline boundary toward the Hollis-CDS area; so we turned E on US-63 into SW OK to get into position. We fueled up at Hollis as a young storm began rotating ESE of town, and newer convection with cores formed to our S-SW near Vernon and CDS.

Using phone radar, I noticed a nasty-looking hook had developed on the W side of Norman, with an HP supercell attached to a larger cluster of storms extending westward. It was a mess, but a mess with a meso. I called my daughter, who told me she just had experienced a tornado at the high school and had been safe in a windowless room, under a desk. The first concern, and relief, was that she was fine. My son was elsewhere, well SE of the path. Both were OK, so I could shake my head and marvel at the truth that, once again, a tornado had occurred in Norman with me observing other storms far away.

We cruised E out of Hollis, preliminarily targeting the storm to our ESE, but with a contingency to stop and let the newer development to our SW (then the tail-end conceptual target) come toward us if it started looking good. That’s exactly what happened. CGs from the newly organizing, tail-end convection slammed all around us between Hollis and Duke. We turned N out of Duke, found a good vantage 3 N of Duke, let the disorganizing eastern storm move away to our NE, and watched the newer storm approach and strengthen.

Alas, still more convection formed upshear, but the storm began looking distinctively supercellular as it crossed the section road to our W. This would become the Altus-Apache supercell, but not before producing a nice wall cloud, one with strong rising motion but only modest cyclonic turning. Another lowered area, likely from an older occlusion visible in the last windmill shot, loomed in the background.

Neither got any better organized; indeed, the entire storm started looking somewhat strung-out. We considered breaking off and heading toward the newer activity W of Hollis and W of CDS, as some others already were. However, we needed a pit stop in nearby LTS, while the supercell began turning into a dark, menacing, precip-filled mass to our N. We decided to stay with it for awhile, watching what by now was an HP “Stormzilla” over the western nubs of the Wichita Mountains.

Our supercell developed a nasty-looking HP hook on radar with a deep, intense mesocyclone; but we couldn’t see anything in the dark murk from LTS regarding the tornado report near Blair. Even without the bathroom break, I’m not sure we would have been able to get in position to see much.

By the time we reached Snyder, it was to late to do much with the western convection before dark. We also knew that the storm would head into an awkwardly configured road void in the Wichitas, cutting us off. [I had circumnavigated the void successfully last November 7, but from a different angle. That day, I beat the storm. This day, the storm would beat me.]

Driving several miles N out of Snyder, we hoped to see whatever the storm had to offer before it got into that road void. Here was its S side, along the rear-flank gust front looking W. Here was the E side, looking NNW toward a small but slowly rotating cloud protrusion with a clear slot. That looked interesting for a few minutes, until being undercut by a massive surge of the heavy precip-loaded RFD.

The photogenic HP storm moved off into the road void to our NE, and we knew it would be dark by the time we could get through Lawton and go N toward Apache to see the storm again. The storm produced a rainy twilight tornado during that interval when we were repositioning, fittingly enough.

By the time we reached Apache to see what was left, we found a storm still supercellular but again messy. Our viewing timing with respect to the best-organized stages simply wasn’t working out. At least, for a short time, the downshear anvil region sparked mightily and beautifully overhead. Our last decent wide-angle view of the storm, from a hill just E of town, featured the lights of the wind farm and Apache to our W, what was left of the wall cloud and main updraft region near center (NW), the vault area to the right (NNW), and of course, cows.

Before the storm could cut off itinerary options again, we headed NE toward Chickasha and home. The storm merged with convection to its W, evolving into a small bow, then moving over Chickasha and toward the Purcell/Pauls Valley area a weakening blob of rain and occasional hail. By then, we were home, tired from the two-day, thousand-mile trek, but eagerly anticipating the big severe-weather day of the 14th.

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SHORT: From LBL, headed to the BFF area for high-based upslope action. Observed a few such storms from between BFF-AIA.

LONG:

The day wasn’t too spectacular convectively, but we saw storms and had a great time nonetheless.

Morning dawned to the analytic display of foci that were somewhere between muddy, nebulous and vague on the spectrum of precision. The surface map showed that the isodrosothermal field had been mangled by overnight and morning convection over southern Kansas, east of where we spent the night. When all else fails, the terrain just isn’t going anywhere–at least not for the next 20-30 million years or so.

We therefore headed toward the reachable area of the NEb Panhandle/NE CO, figuring that 50s F dew points in that area sometimes do good things as long as deep-layer shear is at least marginal. It also put us in position for day-2. Plus, Elke and I love that area for many nonconvective reasons.

After visiting an abandoned shack in western KS, we found a nice hilltop vantage about 5 SW Angora NEb, listening to assorted birds and photographing wildflowers (e.g., copper mallow, western wallflower, and veiny dock), as we waited for convective eruptions.

Assorted towers and turrets soon bubbled up to the W and SW. One persistent pile to our W evolved into a short-lived, high-based storm with a wall cloud to our NW, viewed across the rippled orographic musculature of the Nebraska Panhandle’s ash-bed grasslands. The storm exhibited weak cyclonic shear in the midlevels based on radar velocity output, but just for a few scans.

Other, smaller, junkier cells fired along the foothills in SE WY and over the western reaches of the Wildcat Hills to our SW, amounting to little except as a scenic diversion for aviators. We saw several contrails weaving between storms, including this scene over Minatare. The storms died off with the setting sun.

We settled into a charming little mom-n-pop motel in BFF with funky walls made of green quartzite from Utah. This also was the memorable night my hometown Dallas Mavericks won the NBA championship too–making up for a disappointing evening 5 years before in GCK when I watched them lose it to the very same team.

A very fine day, indeed…

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SHORT: From McPherson KS, drove almost directly to Pritchett Co, saw brief tornado with supercell due W but no photos due to untimely town transect. Supercell died, as did another SW of Boise City. Intercepted back side of Turpin storm, photogenic outflows from trailing squall line. Amazing mammatus sunset followed by fun dinner with CoD crews in LBL.

LONG:
This was a splendid first day on the High Plains for us in 2011! The day after hanging out in the beautiful Flint Hills, Elke and I headed W out of McPherson KS on the most direct route bypassing DDC to our target area of SE CO. We stopped along the way just briefly for fuel and to photograph an abandoned shed.

As we got to Syracuse KS, storms already had formed N of the RTN Mesa and W of US-287 in CO, our decision being to intercept the northern storms in a better road network, or the southern, newer storms that promised more unimpeded inflow for longer. We quickly decided on the latter and went S and W through Springfield to Pritchett.

Despite the densely wrapping hook echo on reflectivity displays, we didn’t expect anything substantially tornadic from the southern storm W of Pritchett, which by now had evolved into a mature, intense but high-based supercell. Alas, right as we started to enter town from the N, Elke noticed a conical funnel under the base to our distant W, protruding about 1/3 groundward, with a dust whirl beneath and thin, translucent debris sheath extending between dust whirl and condensation funnel. Of course, it had to be while we were trying to get through the only town within many miles; and I only caught a couple of brief but unmistakable glimpses between buildings. So did a cop; for staring that direction, he tore out of a nearby alley, sirens and lights blaring, briefly blocking the road before drag-racing Duke Boys style around a gas station and vanishing in a dust plume of his own making.

By the time we exited the S side of town, the tornado was gone–no photos, only memories. All visible vortex traces vanished into Colorado-thin air before I could call it in; but I did so anyway. The PUB forecaster seemed relieved that the warning verified, even if by a brief cheezenado.

We cruised W to an observing spot E of Kim, admiring mammatus to our N more than the increasingly featureless and drab storm now devolving to our W. A broad mass of showers and thunderstorms was growing to the older storm’s SE and dumping cold outflow into its inflow–certain doom for a once-powerful and briefly tornadic storm. Where next? Plenty of daylight, and we were storm-orphans. Cells were firing in the north-central Panhandle of OK, far away but reachable; and we could see the anvil of a persistent, solitary but undoubtedly very high-based cell to our S in NM. We had to go to Boise City for a chance to peek at either; so back we headed to the far fringes of our current home state.

Fifteen to twenty minutes spent at the front of a stopped line of vehicles, waiting for a flagman and pilot car on US-287, either cost us an inflow view of an intense supercell later or saved our necks; I’m still not sure which! By the time we got out of that, the remnants of the NM storm passed by CAO and came into view–not surprisingly, a widespread virga bomb dumping downbursts…albeit a wonderfully textured and photogenic virga bomb.

After fueling in Boise City, we targeted the supercell approaching LBL along the KS/OK border, glimpses of which we could see to our distant E and ENE ever since being stuck in the conga line on 287. Along the way to GUY, I couldn’t resist quick stops for two Great Plains specials: a striking scene of an abandoned barn high in late-day sunlight, as if sailing through an ocean of golden wheat, and from N of GUY, a high-based but beautiful Cb to our distant SE near Booker (the next storm W of what became the Follett supercell).

We headed NE from the GUY bypass toward Optima, greeted by the development and maturation of a pretty front-lit and under-lit arcus from the tail end of a short squall line to our W, NW and N. The earth, desperately dessicated and thirsty as you see, was about to get a much-needed drenching and quenching.

That’s what was happening behind the “Liberal-Turpin” supercell that, once we got to Hooker, was E of the road, sitting directly astride US-64 between Hooker and Turpin. Its meso wrapped across the highway to our E, blocking ready access. Police had US-54 blocked heading NE toward LBL, probably because of (by now) very old information about the supercell; so we turned E toward Turpin, creeping up to the back side of the raging HP monstrosity, able to see only scud and wrapping precip rolling southward in surges around the otherwise unseen mesocyclone. I knew what that meant, and considering past lessons, we weren’t about to core-punch it for any price or dare.

If we had arrived 15-20 minutes sooner, without the earlier traffic blockage N of Boise City, we might have made it; but then again, we also might have missed the amazing sunset show that followed. And that would have been a damn crying shame!

Instead of pondering could-have-beens, we admired still more outflow, this being the curiously lit E side of the arcus from the squall line to our N, looking past Hooker. We let that shelf roll over us for some eerie illumination, then plunged through the wet but harmless band of precip to get to our lodging in LBL.

As we entered LBL, it became glaringly obvious that a spectacular sunset show soon would ensue on the back side of the storm complex. The low, golden sun shone through the last curtains of trailing precip, and also through those, we already could see a field of mammatus aloft through chunks of ragged scud clouds evacuating eastward.

We secured our room keys from our favorite little motel there, then headed N of town for a gorgeous Great Plains sky of sunset mammatus that made the entire convoluted trip, every minute of it, worth its unforeseen destination in images such as this. Yet photos, beautiful as they may be, only can convey two dimensions of one sense: vision. This was not just a scene, it was an experience.

Land parched by drought sprang to life in a soothing blend of sound and aroma, cool and moist, as thoroughly refreshing to me as to the dozens of western meadowlarks celebrating in song across every compass point. I longed for the physical capacity to inhale ceaselessly, so as to miss not a millisecond of moist, earthen scent flowing across cool breezes, while sunset’s golden and reddening glow reflected first off the moving tapestry of mammatus clouds above, then off the land below and all around. For a fleeting few minutes, arms spread wide into the breeze, eyes gazing aloft, ears in stereophonic reception of the avian chorale’s cheerful spontaneity, smells of freshness and cleanliness and life, I ventured into a timeless place far outside the confines of self. It wasn’t the first time under such circumstances, either.

Let me assure you, when you are open to releasing your shackles of distraction and worry, and diving headlong into an experience of this nature, every sight, sound and breath swirls together as one multidimensional immersion in full appreciation reaching far beyond words and images. It’s a conscious decision, a gift to accept, an act of release and absorption, letting go and drawing in. These are the occasions when we let go unconditionally, in spiritual as well as sensory ways, bathing in a rejuvenation of sorts that cleanses all accumulated grime from even the farthest crevices of our being. If this is but an ephemeral and incomplete preview of heaven, count me in when the time comes.

Then came the slow descent back into reality, as the colors faded and a growling stomach begged for tangible nutritive sustenance. I noticed, via SpotterNetwork, that Paul Sirvatka and the CoD crew were headed into LBL from the S, so I called and invited them to join us for what turned out to be a fine dinner with enjoyable company.

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