CheeselandSkies
Member
Would have posted this much earlier, but for the attachment issue (THANKS for fixing!). Starting a separate thread so as not to clutter the seasonal thread which has moved on to discussion of upcoming potential, or necro the original event thread for this time period.
On Wednesday, April 8 I marathon-drove nearly 13 hours from Madison to Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City. I was booked to fly to OKC the previous Thursday, April 2 for the April 3 start of the Storm Chaser Coaching "Founders' Tour," but had a minor panic attack the day before when I realized just how much stuff I still had to take care of both at work and at home. The kicker was I would have literally been flying out of an Enhanced risk with a 10%+CIG1 tornado contour, which seemed like an inauspicious way to start a storm chasing trip. I chased on 4/2, which was fun although the results were a bit of a mixed bag (got on the tornadic supercell near Kalona/Riverside, IA, but only got a distant glimpse of the EF0 rope which occurred west of West Liberty and got my vehicle modestly, but noticeably hail-damaged by briefly driving into the RFD trying to keep up with the storm).
After mulling it over through the weekend (sitting out the 4/3 chase opportunity), I reached out to Trey about the logistics of possibly meeting up with the tour later in the week. He said they would be in OKC Wednesday night and that would be the best time to do so. I left my vehicle in the long-term parking and Trey picked me up in one of the tour vans, and took me to the Stone Hill hotel in Norman, where the tour was staying the night.
The next morning he and our other guide, Ethan Moriarty (YouTuber June First - originally the tour was supposed to be led by all three founding staff of SCC- hence its name - Trey, Carly Sisson [YouTuber Carly Anna WX] and Gabriel Harber, but the latter two had to bow out for various reasons and Ethan was a late, but very worthy substitute) gave us the forecast breakdown.
Thursday, April 9 had a fairly well-focused target with a favorable parameter space for supercells along and north of I-70 in north-central to northeastern Kansas, but modest/last-minute moisture return meant high bases would be likely, limiting the tornado potential. With a fairly long haul to this target from the southern OKC metro, we hit the road. Our little caravan consisted of two Mercedes 2500 Sprinter vans, which were roomy and comfortable but had an alarmingly high profile for vehicles that would be driven in close proximity to severe thunderstorms. We would find that the "crosswind assist" feature tended to do more harm than good, requiring quick reactions on the part of our drivers, and Trey said he is not inclined to rent them again.
I was in the black van, "Thunder" (Naturally the white van was "Lightning"). The guides switched off every day, Ethan was with us on this day. Our driver was Jon Dougherty ("THE STORM CHASING GUY" on YouTube, who I found out freelance-chases for the Gray Media-owned TV station in Amarillo; they also own the station I work for in Madison). With the hours on the road I got to know my vanmates. Behind Jon and Ethan were Sherry and Richard, the latter a big and heavily-tattooed Scotsman (one of two international guests on the tour, and surprisingly the only other male guest in that van). Next to me was Kip, a very sweet older lady (just a couple years younger than my mom) from Henderson, NV who needed a step-stool to get in and out of the van; I quickly adapted to the routine of helping to deploy and retrieve it during stops if Richard didn't. Behind us was Sarah, a young woman who I found out is also from Wisconsin (Germantown)! Behind her, in the back row was Jennifer, a middle-aged (although I ought to talk seeing as I turned 40 this year!) woman from Texas.
Despite the uncertainties in the forecast, it only took us until lunchtime to bag our first tornado...
The Spangles on 9th Street in Salina did an admirable job of efficiently serving a group of nearly 20 people who suddenly rolled in, and the manager Sammy came out to chat with all of us.
After lunch, we continued on up to Concordia, near the warm frontal boundary and where SPC had the CIG-1 hatching within their 2% tornado probability contour. We killed time at a nice park in town waiting for further developments; I played on some swings for the first time in probably over 20 years.
*Seems like there are still some limitations with attachment file sizes which I don't recall being an issue before, therefore, some photos I had intended to post are not being included.*
Despite some occasional peeks of blue sky as shown above, our guides soon detected something amiss with the conditions at our location. The clouds were displaying limited vertical development, indicating atmsopheric stability. However, it was a different story not far to the southwest, west of Barnard or northwest of Lincoln, KS (ironically closer to where we'd been in Salina) where convective development was finally underway along the dryline.
From multiple updrafts developing along the dryline, our guides identified one going up in what would likely be the "sweet spot" between greater mixing (thus higher T/Td spreads) further south and the area further north where moisure had not advected as far as earlier progged (again, greater spreads and a tendency toward outflow production) and we jumped on it while it gradually organized and intensified into a severe-warned, right-moving supercell. The base was still rather high, and although it came down a bit near and after sunset the moisture just wasn't there for tornado production.
High-based supercell near Lincoln, KS 4/9/2026 by Andy, on Flickr
Attempting a 3-point turn to depart this photo stop, "Thunder's" rear wheels got snagged on the shoulder of the dirt road, and despite Jon's best efforts he couldn't free it. Fortunately, we didn't have a tornado or other significant hazard bearing down on us at high speed, and that's why they were carrying a tow rope as "Lightning" was able to pull us out in a few minutes. Notice all of our luggage chucked into the grass to lighten the load...
As darkness set in, the lightning show from the storm became quite spectacular. In fact, I don't believe I've ever seen a storm produce lightning that constant, for that long before. During our last stop before it got completely dark, I was able to capture a couple of bolts with my handheld DSLR just by setting it to 1/10 shutter and snapping away.
Lightning from high-based supercell near Tescott, KS 4/9/2026 1 by Andy, on Flickr
Lightning from high-based supercell near Tescott, KS 4/9/2026 2 by Andy, on Flickr
No imagery or video can really do it justice, but I've made both timelapse (5x, starting from the stop pictured above) and real-time/long-form videos of this chase:
Following this chase we ended up back in Salina for dinner at Braum's (another Plains chain I hadn't previously known about, and which along with Spangles means McDonalds will be seeing a lot less of me on future Plains trips!). Here's the "Guides and Drivers" table; front row L-R Ethan and Jon, back Christian (the driver for "Lightning") and Trey.
Whew! This post has already been way longer than anticipated, and that was only Day 1! To be continued...
On Wednesday, April 8 I marathon-drove nearly 13 hours from Madison to Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City. I was booked to fly to OKC the previous Thursday, April 2 for the April 3 start of the Storm Chaser Coaching "Founders' Tour," but had a minor panic attack the day before when I realized just how much stuff I still had to take care of both at work and at home. The kicker was I would have literally been flying out of an Enhanced risk with a 10%+CIG1 tornado contour, which seemed like an inauspicious way to start a storm chasing trip. I chased on 4/2, which was fun although the results were a bit of a mixed bag (got on the tornadic supercell near Kalona/Riverside, IA, but only got a distant glimpse of the EF0 rope which occurred west of West Liberty and got my vehicle modestly, but noticeably hail-damaged by briefly driving into the RFD trying to keep up with the storm).
After mulling it over through the weekend (sitting out the 4/3 chase opportunity), I reached out to Trey about the logistics of possibly meeting up with the tour later in the week. He said they would be in OKC Wednesday night and that would be the best time to do so. I left my vehicle in the long-term parking and Trey picked me up in one of the tour vans, and took me to the Stone Hill hotel in Norman, where the tour was staying the night.
The next morning he and our other guide, Ethan Moriarty (YouTuber June First - originally the tour was supposed to be led by all three founding staff of SCC- hence its name - Trey, Carly Sisson [YouTuber Carly Anna WX] and Gabriel Harber, but the latter two had to bow out for various reasons and Ethan was a late, but very worthy substitute) gave us the forecast breakdown.
Thursday, April 9 had a fairly well-focused target with a favorable parameter space for supercells along and north of I-70 in north-central to northeastern Kansas, but modest/last-minute moisture return meant high bases would be likely, limiting the tornado potential. With a fairly long haul to this target from the southern OKC metro, we hit the road. Our little caravan consisted of two Mercedes 2500 Sprinter vans, which were roomy and comfortable but had an alarmingly high profile for vehicles that would be driven in close proximity to severe thunderstorms. We would find that the "crosswind assist" feature tended to do more harm than good, requiring quick reactions on the part of our drivers, and Trey said he is not inclined to rent them again.
I was in the black van, "Thunder" (Naturally the white van was "Lightning"). The guides switched off every day, Ethan was with us on this day. Our driver was Jon Dougherty ("THE STORM CHASING GUY" on YouTube, who I found out freelance-chases for the Gray Media-owned TV station in Amarillo; they also own the station I work for in Madison). With the hours on the road I got to know my vanmates. Behind Jon and Ethan were Sherry and Richard, the latter a big and heavily-tattooed Scotsman (one of two international guests on the tour, and surprisingly the only other male guest in that van). Next to me was Kip, a very sweet older lady (just a couple years younger than my mom) from Henderson, NV who needed a step-stool to get in and out of the van; I quickly adapted to the routine of helping to deploy and retrieve it during stops if Richard didn't. Behind us was Sarah, a young woman who I found out is also from Wisconsin (Germantown)! Behind her, in the back row was Jennifer, a middle-aged (although I ought to talk seeing as I turned 40 this year!) woman from Texas.
Despite the uncertainties in the forecast, it only took us until lunchtime to bag our first tornado...
The Spangles on 9th Street in Salina did an admirable job of efficiently serving a group of nearly 20 people who suddenly rolled in, and the manager Sammy came out to chat with all of us.
After lunch, we continued on up to Concordia, near the warm frontal boundary and where SPC had the CIG-1 hatching within their 2% tornado probability contour. We killed time at a nice park in town waiting for further developments; I played on some swings for the first time in probably over 20 years.
*Seems like there are still some limitations with attachment file sizes which I don't recall being an issue before, therefore, some photos I had intended to post are not being included.*
Despite some occasional peeks of blue sky as shown above, our guides soon detected something amiss with the conditions at our location. The clouds were displaying limited vertical development, indicating atmsopheric stability. However, it was a different story not far to the southwest, west of Barnard or northwest of Lincoln, KS (ironically closer to where we'd been in Salina) where convective development was finally underway along the dryline.
From multiple updrafts developing along the dryline, our guides identified one going up in what would likely be the "sweet spot" between greater mixing (thus higher T/Td spreads) further south and the area further north where moisure had not advected as far as earlier progged (again, greater spreads and a tendency toward outflow production) and we jumped on it while it gradually organized and intensified into a severe-warned, right-moving supercell. The base was still rather high, and although it came down a bit near and after sunset the moisture just wasn't there for tornado production.
High-based supercell near Lincoln, KS 4/9/2026 by Andy, on FlickrAttempting a 3-point turn to depart this photo stop, "Thunder's" rear wheels got snagged on the shoulder of the dirt road, and despite Jon's best efforts he couldn't free it. Fortunately, we didn't have a tornado or other significant hazard bearing down on us at high speed, and that's why they were carrying a tow rope as "Lightning" was able to pull us out in a few minutes. Notice all of our luggage chucked into the grass to lighten the load...
As darkness set in, the lightning show from the storm became quite spectacular. In fact, I don't believe I've ever seen a storm produce lightning that constant, for that long before. During our last stop before it got completely dark, I was able to capture a couple of bolts with my handheld DSLR just by setting it to 1/10 shutter and snapping away.
Lightning from high-based supercell near Tescott, KS 4/9/2026 1 by Andy, on FlickrLightning from high-based supercell near Tescott, KS 4/9/2026 2 by Andy, on FlickrNo imagery or video can really do it justice, but I've made both timelapse (5x, starting from the stop pictured above) and real-time/long-form videos of this chase:
Following this chase we ended up back in Salina for dinner at Braum's (another Plains chain I hadn't previously known about, and which along with Spangles means McDonalds will be seeing a lot less of me on future Plains trips!). Here's the "Guides and Drivers" table; front row L-R Ethan and Jon, back Christian (the driver for "Lightning") and Trey.
Whew! This post has already been way longer than anticipated, and that was only Day 1! To be continued...
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