54 Great Bend KS 5May2007

Date: 5 May 2007

Location: Chase, KS to Great Bend, KS to Wilson, KS.

Chase Partners: Tami Griffin and Fred The F-5.

Summary: Departed Goodand, KS earlier than anticipated and headed toward Wilson, KS. MD's were already up when we left so I felt this kind of overwhelming urgency to get east of the dry line as the atmospere never really stabilized from the previous night. Seeing the devastation in Greensburg, KS made it all to real that this just wasn't a hobby. Things kind of mello'd out for a while after we got to Lake Wilson. Spent a good portion of the day there just kind of hanging out and watching one small thunderstorm die out after another. Around 1700 some storms started to look a little more organized to the south near the Great Bend area. We targeted a storm east of there just south of Chase, KS. As we entered Chase, a TOR Warning went out and we parked south of town and watched a short lasting drill bit tornado that touched down about a mile from where we sat for just a few moments before dissipating. We chased that storm a short time north of Chase and it looked as though it was dying out. We then targeted another storm that was TOR Warned SW of Great Bend and since it was about to enter Great Bend opted to strategically place ourselves E of Great Bend and wait. We weren't there long before a funnel emerged from the darkness. It was so dark and the contrast was so bad that I could not tell if we were just looking at a very large funnel or a truncated cone tornado. We were in perfect position as it blazed by us about a mile or 2 to the north of us. We chased this until it looked as though we were going to get bowled over by the core and aborted to the south. After a while we headed back up toward Wilson where it was pouring rain. Stopped at the Conoco on I-70 at exit 200 where Tami overheard the buzz of the tornado crossing I-70. Woulda Coulda Shoulda kept going. We opted to started heading back to Denver shortly after. Not a bad day all in all. Tami saw a tornado.......maybe two on her first chase. After the dismal year last season for tornadoes I was glad just to see a rotating cloud.

Wall cloud SW of Chase, KS. Will add vidcaps of the drill bit tornado in October.

A large funnel emerges from the darkness near Great Bend.

Truncated cone tornado? The images are extremely enhanced because it was so dark. I could make out something wrapping very rapidly around the surface, but don't know if it was rain or dust.