2 Comments

Tweet

f

CHASE LOG TRIP INFORMATION Log Type: Chase Log Location: Northern Oklahoma Departed From: Westminster, CO Finished In: Westminster, CO Trip Miles: 1,229 States: CO, KS, OK

SPC Day 1 Outlook

SPC Tornado Probability

SPC Hail Probability

SPC Wind Probability

 

The weather we encountered on this chase won’t be why we remember this one for so long.  The 1,229 miles we did in 20 hours of driving will trump anything else that came out of this trip.  Tom and I left my apartment in Westminster, Colorado at 5:00am to drive out to near the airport where we picked up Scott Hammel.  We left the parking lot of the airport Park-and-Ride at 5:35am and shot out I-70 to Salina, drove south through Wichita, then eventually as far as Perry, Oklahoma before turning around and driving the exact same route back, dropping Scott off then arriving at my apartment at 1:02am.  In those 20 hours and 1,229 miles, a lot to speak of!

RELATED INFORMATION

• Hail Video From Perry, OK
• KSAS Air-Check

The morning forecast looked promising, and even though this chase was a knee-jerk reaction to missing Monday’s Oklahoma tornadoes, it looked like it held even more potential than that missed day.  We knew the best area was well east into southern Missouri and Arkansas where we had no real desire to chase.  Our target was southeast Kansas ahead of the ejecting surface low.  Since a long drive and potentially early storm initiation were in the equation, we set out initially for Wichita with the hope that we’d get down with time to spare in order to decide where to go from there.  As we neared Wichita, we knew we were doing well on time, so Arkansas City became the target.

One of my favorite things along I-135 as I’ve seen him every year since I started chasing the Plains!

We stopped in Belle Plains for a fill-up and thanks to the dismal 2000z SPC Outlook, it looked as if the lengthy drive was for not.  The forecasters removed the slight risk for our southeast Kansas target as a shield of precip had moved into the area between us and Missouri and basically slaughtered our chances at severe potential in our target area.  We gulped down McDonalds and discussed our options.  Do we call it and head home, saving ourselves the very late night?  Or do we venture further, south into Oklahoma where the surface low was developing a few sub-severe cells.

Given the lengthy drive and the short (in comparison) distance to intercept the storms in northern Oklahoma, we made the first of two smart choices of the day to chase down into Oklahoma and give the storms a shot.  Temperatures were only in the 50s with mid-to-upper 40s dewpoints, so we knew the chances were not high, but given the shear in place and lapse rates thanks to the colder air aloft, we didn’t wite off the severe chances yet.  With that, we took off south on I-35 into northern Oklahoma.

The second of the two smart choices came around when we discussed our intercept plans.  The storms were looking pretty meager and would occasionally put up a hail marker on GRLevel3 of 0.25-0.50″.  The storm complex was quasi-linear, a line segment, and moving north/northeast.  It was hard to pick out a specific area to target in the line, so we had discussed sitting at various exits along the highway and wait for it to come to us.  Instead, we opted to fly down to the southern part of the line where the hail core grew in intensity right over the interstate and ultimately over us and provided us with the bust-preventing show we needed.

We stopped and shot around the Perry exit for a few minutes before turning ourselves north again in hopes to get ahead of the storm.  At this point, the outflow and strengthening precip core was surging the line into a bow and greatly increased its northerly speed to the point where we had to race back into Kansas to catch up with it again.  We discussed our options and decided the storm was no longer worth pursuing so we continued north out of Wichita back to I-70 where we coasted ourselves back to Denver, arriving around 1am, 20 hours after leaving.

Thanks need to go out to Doug Kiesling and Rodney Price for helping get my video out.  It was featured in several areas, including on The Weather Channel (a very rare surprise these days) as well as the local news stations in Wichita, Kansas.

And of course, thanks to Tom Dulong and Scott Hammel for splitting the gas costs and making for terrific company on what turned out to be a very lengthy drive.  Very nice to have Tom Dulong back in the Colorado circle as this was my first chase with him in a couple year!

A few fun stats and notes on this chase..

• This was my 44th chase of 1000 miles or more in my career.
• The 1,229 miles was the most miles I had done in one sitting in such a short amount of time (20 hours).
• The miles I drove in those 20 hours would’ve taken me from Denver, Colorado all the way to my home state, needing only an additional 40 miles or so on top of that to make my hometown in Circleville, Ohio.
• Even with all the miles, the net distance traveled was zero miles given I ended up in the exact same place I left earlier in the day.
• I arrived at work the very next morning at 8:30am and will close that shift at 9pm, then catch a flight out the following morning not too far from where we ended up on this chase.
• The mileage in those 20 hours was about 12 miles per hour more than I usually average because never once did we have to travel off the interstate (minus food/gas/potty stops).  That speaks volumes for what value the interstate has in terms of making time.  I usually average about 50mph including stops, we averaged nearly 62 on this trip.
• I averaged about 21mpg on this trip, but because of the surface wind pattern, I did 23mpg on the way out to chase and only about 19mpg on the way back.
• We left with a full tank (Westminster, CO), filled up along the way a total of 4 times during the chase (Oakley, KS; Belle Plains, KS; Salina, KS; Colby, KS), and once at the end to refill the tank (Westminster, CO).  The opening fill-up topped us off to get started for $20.  The 4-chase fill-ups ran $130.79 and the top-off at the end was $31.45.   As a result, this chase took up a total of $182.24 for gas alone.  We paid a range from $2.51 up to $2.79.  This cost is much easier to swallow when split multiple ways, so for those wondering how to save money on chasing, this is the way!

MY STORM REPORTS Tornadoes Observed: None Hail Observed: 0.88" (3 inches deep) Flooding Observed: None Wind Gusts Observed: 55-60mph Loading...