May 5th, 2007 Kansas Tornadofest
Last Updated on Monday, 04 January 2010 20:42 Written by Roger Hill
May 5th was a High Risk day from the SPC. Everything seemed to be coming together for a significant tornado outbreak. We decided to target storms in southwest Kansas east of Dodge City. A strong dry punch, intense wind shear and strong instability would set the stage for tornadic supercells. Storms struggled till early evening with the strong shear ripping apart about any storm that tried forming. Finally a supercell developed near Pratt that became tornado warned. It produced a weak tornado and many funnel clouds. About an hour later, several supercells developed and produced numerous tornadoes. We were able to intercept 6 more tornadoes, including a few that were strong. Check out the photos below and also the two videos, one in daylight from the first supercell, then a dusk video that contains most of the intense tornadoes.
VIDEO #1 Pratt, KS supercell (15 MB)
VIDEO #2 Macksville, KS tornadoes and more (13 MB)
CLICK ON THE THUMBNAIL FOR A LARGER VIDEO STILL IMAGE:
First supercell produces a nice funnel. It never touches down. |
We blastg northeast from Pratt and encounter this INTENSE cascading motion on the south side of the wall cloud. I thought we would get a good tornado here. |
Not sure if this ever touched down or not. I came close. |
Another cone shaped funnel forms under the large circular updraft and wall cloud. |
There are actually two funnels here. One in the foreground upper left and one in the background. |
Funnel stretches out with a piece of condensation hanging in the air. |
A bit later southeast of Zook, a nice supercell raced off to the northeast and produced this nice elephant trunk shaped tornado. |
Wider shot of the same tornado. |
The next supercell approached us from east of Greensburg, headed for the Macksville area. This was probably the strongest tornado of them all, occurring just east of Macksville. Shot was enhanced for visibility. |
Very large and strong cone tornado crosses the highway between St John and Macksville. |
Another tornado developed just northeast of the first one. |
Snaking tornado develops about 200 yards from us!!! |
Tighter shot of the tornado, enhanced for visibility. |
I included this digital still although very blurry as I tried to hand hold this. But it clearly shows a multivortex tornado. It was just northwest of St John. We saw one other LARGE tornado southwest of St John but due to the closeness and our need to relocate quickly, I didn't get any shots of it. |
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