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Driving south from Syracuse toward Johnson City,
the turbulent underside of the rain free base (RFB) could be seen 20 to
30 miles west of the highway. While going up and down hills, I
only got brief glimpses of possible tornadoes or perhaps lowered clouds
along the rear flank downdraft (RFD) gust front/inflow interface under
the RFB. |
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I turned west on a farm road north of Johnson
City, Kansas. Note the anvil overhead (upper level outflow) and
the band of low clouds feeding into the storms. |
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I found a dirt side road extending into a
farmer's field, stopped and set up my camera. Looking west
northwest, a low level inflow cloud (a.k.a. a "beaver tail"
cloud) could be seen feeding into one of the updrafts from the east
northeast. |
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Looking almost due west, a wall cloud formed and
was undercut by a surge of RFD and outflow from the rain core (forward
flank downdraft or FFD).. |
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A farmer crossed the field of view, in front of
an impressive rain foot, evidence of strong outflow from the
precipitation core. The character of the storm began to change
quickly. |
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Looking west as the tail end Charlie
intensified, the storm became better defined as a single storm, instead
of a cell closely associated with the line. An inflow jet
developed at the surface, flowing in from the southeast and feeding into
the storm. Look under the rain free base, to the left of the rain
area. |
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The inflow jet continued to develop while cloud
tags began to lower and point toward this stream of warm moist air. |
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Eventually, a combination of condensation and
dust extended from the surface to the cloud base. I was too far
away to discern rotation, but from time to time this column formed a
corkscrew shape. |
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Whether this feature was a tornado or not is
open to argument. I was not close enough to tell for sure.
And at the time, I only had a 35mm camera and no video camera. So
there's no video to review. |
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As the storm accelerated and began to bear down
on my location, a barrage of cloud to ground (CG) lightning began.
Lightning was striking repeatedly nearby. Small hail began to
fall. It was time to pack up and get ready to find a safer
spotting location. |
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I took one last photo and then left quickly,
with the storm nipping at my heels. I had watched this storm sit
almost stationary for at least an hour. After the wall cloud
developed and was undercut by RFD, the storm changed character quickly,
suddenly intensified and accelerated. |
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I decided to try to reposition myself on the
south side of the storm. This meant driving several miles east to
the main highway, then south through Johnson City and continuing 15 to
20 miles south through a sparsely populated area to the next east/west
highway intersection. This drive quickly became one that I'll not
forget. The storm quickly changed shape from a classic supercell
to a hybrid classic - HP. A thick core of precipitation began to
wrap around the updraft. A large cone shaped updraft base
developed to the west of the highway, tucked into a C-shaped area of
precipitation. Looking in my rear view mirror, I could see a dark
green precipitation core behind and just to the west of the
highway. I had reached the point of no return. The storm was
moving east southeast quickly. I had to continue south. |
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I pushed harder on the gas pedal in a race to
beat what appeared to be a developing tornado. To my immediate
southwest, I could see the south end of the wrapping precipitation core
approaching the highway. In front of me, I could see dust,
tumbleweeds and crop debris flying across the road from left to
right. Some of the tumbleweeds had been lofted high into the air
and were moving horizontally 100 to 200 feet above the highway with the
inflow jet. I was about to enter the inflow jet that I'd been
watching earlier. Overhead, I could see the cumuliform underside
of the anvil. Falling from the anvil, I could faintly see
streamers of precipitation. Verga? Hail? My knuckles
turned white as I gripped the steering wheel, attempting to maintain
control while being buffeted by the wind, pelted by small rocks, dirt,
wheat stubble, and tumble weeds, all being sucked into the updraft just
west of the highway. Suddenly, I saw a very large hail stone hit
in the road ahead of me and bounce several feet, unbroken.
That was a very bad sign! Then another in the field next to the
road. Then, a deafening BANG! ! ! A large hail stone hit the
left side of the windshield, shattering it. Shortly afterward, the
wind shifted abruptly and began to blow hard from the west as I entered
the RFD. The large hail was replaced by curtains of windblown
atomized rain. |
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The storm was moving east southeast. A few
more miles down the road, I came to the east/west intersection.
Judging by the direction the storm was moving, the core would pass over
the road a few miles east of the intersection. Since the storm was
evolving into an HP, I decided to pull off the road and check the damage
and mend my wounds. |
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Shortly after stopping, Warren Faidley and his
chase partner stopped. Warren's windshield was shattered
too. His vehicle had two large craters where he taken additional
strikes, one on the hood and one on the body, below a side window.
A side window was also cracked. Later, I heard that a police
cruiser from Johnson City was some distance behind Warren. He was
caught in the hail core and reportedly lost all of the windows in his
cruiser as well as the headlights, tail-lights and trim. |
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The next day, I stopped at Black Mesa, Oklahoma
to record the damage.
It initially appeared as though I would have
plenty of time to circumnavigate this storm. But, sometimes I
win. Sometimes the storm wins. In this case, the storm won.
Fortunately, I was able to escape the hail core. Whew!
However, I did get some good images of an odd
tornado or tornado like storm oddity. |
