Kansas Hail Storms

Chase Recap:

The models had painted a mostly marginal day, but it was a Sunday and there was still a slight chance to actually see something, so Mike and I took the chance. We headed out a little before noon from Norman, and headed up I-35 with an original target of near El Dorado, KS. As we were driving, it seemed like maybe Emporia, KS was a decent target.

We headed to Emporia and got gas and decided to go just a little bit further to near Waverly on the US75 exit.

Eventually, things started firing to our WNW, and we headed up US 75 towards Topeka. The storms had fired behind the Cold Front which seemed a bit weird.

We made it up to I-70 and I decided to go west. I should have kept going north, but thought I had enough time to go west, and get a north option to cross the river before it arrived. The storm was moving a lot faster than I anticipated, and it rocketed away from me at light speeds.

We witnessed some dust blowing up. I didn’t think much of it, but it turned out it was a Gustnadospout thingy according to other chasers.

I kept zig zagging on dirt roads trying to keep up, but gave up a little northeast of Topeka and decided to drop back down the KS Turnpike to catch the storms firing to the southwest. Most of these weren’t very impressive on radar, but provided impressive lightning shows.

Mike and I basically followed the storms down the turnpike back to approximately El Dorado where they finally moved off to the east of us, and we headed back to Norman.