May 23 Summary

Storm Reports
Pictures
Compiled by Gregg G. and myself -- all times are in CDT:

Early morning severe thunderstorm provides pea size hail and heavy rain at the Guyer household in Norman at 5:45 am. We are on the road at 6:15 am heading for Limon CO, where based on new info we will decide either the northern or southern route in CO. After getting on I-70 near Salina…a kind police officer decided to get in the middle of the road and point at Jared. He wanted to have a casual chat with us. He asked what was going on…we said we were going to CO for some storm chasing. No ticket! He smiled and gave Jared a stern warning and said to enjoy the beauty of Kansas. WE WILL!

Large cell developed on Lake-Palmer Ridge and quickly went severe. Continued and got gas at Seibert CO -- we meet up with Bart and the Valpo crew. Sat and got gas, and data from Gregg’s DC friend and Valpo base support. Tor box issued (CO/NM border to 60 mi N of LBF). Cells start developing over us (just to west…nice based and development of hail shaft. While driving back to Burlington on I-70m very strong/impressive inflow (cross) winds (S) are leading to very strong dust advection into the storm behind us! This occurred around 5:00 PM obscuring views (visibilities of .5 to .25 miles). Over a 3 mile stretch through the dust the Tds went from 42F to 62F (mi. 434 on I70 – moist side). Went north out of Burlington and saw one cell to the west moving NE and the other directly ahead. Tornado warning for the one directly ahead. Started heading north quickly to get ahead of the western cell. Did but as we turned north western cell was dying. Good SSE flow into the “tornadic” cell. Lightning was nice and strong, but no rotation seen. Tor warning was re-issued again for Yuma county for a cell NW of the other. As the other was weakening, decided to head back west to see the new cell. There was a nice lowering and some weak rotation but nothing very impressive. This cell received too much cold air in its inflow and sheared out. New slow moving cells were developing to the west. Decided to go have some fun and park under it. Once the pea size hail was falling well, decided to head “home” to Burlington for the night (at 7:30 pm). All other cells are weak with little hope of svr. Stopped in Joes to chill…decided later to punch the core of hail storm to the east(about 8:15-8:30)… saw marble hail, then hail covering the road. Later some marble to dime size was falling. Got out of the hail and got to US385 South, where the storm caught us while we were going south. This time the hvy rain was accompanied by very small pea hail, but more impressive 50+mph wind gusts (9:05pm) with the outflow.

Total Mileage 735