STORM TRACK: September 30, 1985 (Volume 8 Issue 6)

(Based on numerous letters/phone calls by chasers)

Turbulent May began on the 7th over Lubbock, Texas as a massive afternoon storm cell developed just northwest of town. Ron McQueen (Lubbock NWS staff) reports that a storm spotter, John Powell, was trying to describe the large, strangely tortured cloud base overhead to a spotter-monitor at the local base station, when the latter took a second look out the window to the west and told John to "get the hell out of there!" It seems that Mr. Powell was trying to find the words to describe a four mile wide wall cloud, forming directly overhead. It was so large that he didn't realize what it was. Taking the nearest "get the hell out" road, he promptly charged north (!) right into baseball hail and flooded roads (usually can be found on that side of a wall cloud). Sometimes, it just isn't your day, no matter what you do.

May 10, "THE CHASE OF THE DECADE"

However, this experience was just a side-show to the main event, which every other chaser would soon hear about and drool over ("Where was I that day? What was I doing that afternoon?"). The piece de resistance was May 10 in Kansas, or as Erik Rasmussen, veteran of over 150 tornadoes, would come to say, "The best I've seen.. þ"

That storm, "biggest ... in this area in 24 years" (Goodland NWS), brought over 14 devastating tornadoes across north central Kansas, striking "15 farmsteads in Phillips County, obliterating five ... nine ... severely hit in Rooks County and two more ... in Trego County." Rooks County Sheriff Frank Skovald got so close, following one tornado, that "he could feel the roof of the car pulsing 'like a plunger on the roof.'" He went on to describe "one farmhouse where the tornado churned up the driveway, uprooted trees in the front yard and tore off the front porch of the house. Then it lifted up, leaving the house unscathed. It dropped to the ground again, directly behind the house, bursting the barn and the grainery and tossing a combine several hundred feet away." (The Hays Daily News, Hays, Ks., May 12, 1985) "Fences were stripped, trees were uprooted, homes were smashed, ... and cattle were turned into mudballs ... cattle stopped short at the edge of a plowed field, but were 'picked up and carried a half to three-quarters of a mile into another pasture. They were plastered with mud and ... could be identified only by ear tags.'" At another location, twelve cows were killed. "'They looked like a mushy mud had been poured over them like plaster. Hoof prints and skid marks made it look like they had been picked up, slammed down, and skidded from an eighth to a quarter of a mile.'" (The Phillips County Review, Phillipsburg, Ks., May 15, 1985)

(The following account was assembled from a detailed letter from Erik Rasmussen in Louisiana, a letter and photo from Karl Leiker in Massachusetts, and a copy of the Wichita radar log and local newspapers from Roy Britt in Virginia.)

Erik: "After seeing all the April chase tales, I decided it was about time to pen our recollections on the 'chase of the decade'. The May 10 storms truly were the best I've seen, especially in terms of the number and power of tornadoes sighted in one chase.

Lisa and I were on 'standby' in April and early May, hoping to take a few days off for chasing, whenever the pattern looked right. Lisa was scheduled to start work as an oceanographer/meteorologist on May 20, so we had to chase before that date." At about this time, Karl Leiker, a teacher of physical geography and meteorology at Westfield State College in Massachusetts, was just arriving on the high plains of Kansas. "This past May, I participated in my first storm chase. While on sabbatical leave for 1985's spring semester, I flew out to Denver on April 30, where I engaged a Hertz rental car for three weeks. The storm omens were good, as I drove the 350 miles from Denver to Hays, Kansas, where I was born and raised and where my mother still lives. During the trip along I-70, there were several bands of T-storms, but none above 30,000 ft.

The first few days in Hays were rather quiet weatherwise: a high pressure ridge produced fine, bright and warm days. By the 9th of May, however, things began to change. Fortunately, my mom has cable-TV with the Weather Channel; hence at least to a limited degree, I could keep track of things, and also had some help from the FAA troops in Russell, 25 miles to the east."

"On May 8, the long range prognoses from NWS (The National Weather Service) indicated that the western US long-wave trough would be increasing the flow and instability in the Plains, so Lisa and I flew from the Mississippi coast to Oklahoma City that evening. This was my first time to travel a great distance on short notice for a few days chasing, and we both felt nervous about spending so much for so small odds. We rented a $14/day Avis weekend special -- a nice little Renault that served us well for our four day, 2,000 mile trek.

After visiting NSSL in Norman on the morning of the 9th ('What are you doing HERE? All the action's gonna be in North Dakota! Good luck seeing ANYTHING in the next few days.'), we targeted Garden City, Kansas as the nearest area of opportunity. West of Dodge City, we saw several weak, high based storms. Around sunset, one storm migrated into Kansas from Colorado and showed weak rotation with turbulent, strong eddies above the gust front. There was radar,indication of a tornado but no visual signs of a mesocyclone. That storm was a pretty warmup for the next day,

Friday, the 10th, dawned with scattered cirrus and stout south winds in Garden City. Lisa ran her usual six miles early that morning, while I worried that the cirrus was not moving and whether the needed upper flow would ever materialize. We went to the Dodge City NWS and looked at what data we could, but it's hard to see much without imposing on the staff. So, I called Larry Patman, a forecaster at Now Weather, Inc., and got surface observations and the answer to a few crucial questions:

(1) What is the eastern-most extent of the 50 kt flow at 250 mb?

(2) What is the mean RH pattern on the 12 hour LFM prog.? and

(3) What is the 500 mb temperature at Dodge City, El Paso, Midland, Amarillo, and Albuquerque?

These few indicators and my surface map told me the odds of tornadoes were high, and we targeted the area south of a line from Dodge City - Garden City on down to the Kansas- Oklahoma border."

Roy Britt and Tim Marshall also analyzed that morning's data in Dallas and, likewise, targeted southwest Kansas as a likely storm breeder. However, they had farther to come and had only reached Amarillo by noon, still four hours from Dodge City. Al Moller made the same forecast but started from Amarillo, with a better chance to catch the Kansas storms. Thus, four chase vehicles were converging on that storm: the Rasmussens, Britt and Marshall, Moller, and Leiker.

Karl recounts his own analysis; "On the morning of May 10, the convective outlook was interesting: a -4 lifted index was projected for SW Kansas, and there was evidence of a building dryline to the west, Overhead, a strong southerly moist tongue was evident as well as a low-level jet of 45-60 knots at about 850 mb. By 1 PM CDT, a dryline was present in NW Kansas. For example, the Hill City FAA station reported a dewpoint of 60 deg F, whereas, Goodland, 140 miles to the west, only had 40 deg F."

As Lisa and Erik were heading south from Dodge City, "I noticed what appeared to be subtropical cirrus over the panhandle area. This bowed northward with time, and temperatures in Texas were staying low (Thanks, KGNC!) while Kansas was heating up. In addition, small towers were forming on a NE-SW line in western Kansas. We stopped driving south before reaching Oklahoma and tentatively turned back toward the largest of the towers to our north. This tower in fact became the first tornadic supercell. We cranked the little Renault motor up to somewhat above the speed limit as we barreled north across the featureless western Kansas prairie, which I think is immensely beautiful (being a native Kansan). The prairie is especially beautiful on a day with crystal blue skies -- except for a few hard-as-rock Cb's (Cumulonimbus), exploding on the horizon!"

At about this time, Roy and Tim were charging toward the border, thinking that those beautiful towers in northern Kansas were just an hour up the road, unaware of their rapid transit of 40 MPH to the northeast. Roy's slides on that fateful day show magnificent back-sheared thunderheads, distant against blurred fence posts, as this benighted 700 mile chase team raced north -- just a few score tantalizing miles from the spinning columns that were marching across northern Kansas. The classical frustrating chase continued, as the classical successful chase was about to begin.

"We were awed with viewing the gradual textbook evolution of this supercell. The first tall towers were sheared completely off, with little puffs gradually turning to ice as they drifted downwind (My upper flow requirements had been met.'). Subsequent pushes were longer-lived and taller, with frequent thick pileus caps. The new Cb was drifting north east at about 40 MPH, which meant we had to drive hard and long to even get near."

Not so for Karl Leiker, who started closer and was moving north and abreast of the Rasmussens at almost the same time. "At about 3:10 PM CDT, I headed north from Rush Center, Kansas (where I had been consuming a giant cheeseburger at Effie's), aiming for the Cedar Bluffs Reservoir area in western Kansas. KAYS TV and Radio in Hays has an old PPI radar that they use in conjunction with their news teams. By tuning in to their station (1400 KHz), I obtained some idea of where the strongest cells were located."

Eric: "We passed through Jetmore (my dad's boyhood home) and Ness City, and then cut east around the Cedar Bluff Reservoirs" (The first tornado reported was a little before their arrival, at 3:10 PM CDT near the Reservoir). "By this time, the towers had matured into a severe storm near Ellis, with two large, strong updrafts and a hard anvil on the south side. Just past the reservoir, we began to hear the 'pffffft' static on the radio, which is associated with cloud-to ground lightning in the vicinity of mesocyclones (contrasted with the usual popping and crackling static, common to cloud to ground strikes with weaker storms). This was about 3:50 PM CDT, and I told Lisa that the first tornado was imminent."

- So thought Henry Siebel at his farmhouse west of Ellis, who was "giving a quick lesson in meteorology to his grandson ... 'I looked up and I knew it was coming ...' Three minutes later, the tornado had passed over, taking part of his barn and storage shed. 'It didn't last long enough to justify the devastation,' he said. His daughter was driving up to the farm with a friend, Ron Thallas, who said, 'We were a half mile down the road and could see the clouds circling, going up and down, up and down. I said, 'Hold on,' because the birds weren't coming back down when they flew up.'" (The Hays Daily News, Hays, Ks., May 12, 1985) Erik: "At 4;05 PM, we spotted a vertical column" from this VIP-3 storm, "almost indistinguishable from the rain shaft on the southwest side. 'With a few more miles, we confirmed the presence of a narrow, laminar tornado. It was in poor contrast, about 10 miles northeast of us, but we were able to watch it as a 'white' column and then as it roped out and dissipated.

Karl Leiker at first "headed north of I-70 near Yocemento, intending to turn east so I could get onto US-183. As I made the right turn, I saw a tornado form in my rear view mirror ... Talk about beginner's luck!

It touched down 10-12 miles west of me at 4:11 PM and stayed on the ground until 4:24 PM. I took several pictures with a borrowed camera (The WSC Geography Dept's Nikon). The major problem was that I didn't have a telephoto lens. The closest I could get to the tornado, using the checkerboard section roads, was about 5-6 miles. It first touched down south of the Riga exit on I-70 and then proceeded north for several miles to the NNE."

Illustration from slide copy of Hays TV video

Erik and Lisa "turned east toward the southwest flank on I-70 at Ogallah. About five miles west of Ellis, we crossed the path of #1, seeing severe tree damage and a collapsed barn. As we turned north at Ellis, the Cb was a smooth-based supercell with short flanks south and west --or an 'L' shaped updraft. A new wall cloud evolved very quickly on the south flank of this VIP-5 50,000 foot " storm (which had actually turned to the left of its original direction). The rotation was intense, as it would be for all the wall clouds this day. I cannot remember any other storms which exhibited rotation this strong in the wall clouds. We observed this wall cloud for about 15 minutes, as condensation funnels of various sizes reached the ground several times. We couldn't see debris or dust, but the ground was wet and grassy. I don't know how much damage these tornadoes caused. The storm was moving faster than we could, and the wall cloud, was becoming encircled with rain. At that point, we were near Palco, Kansas and watching a new supercell about 25 miles to the west, with a good wall cloud, while yet another wall cloud was forming to our east!

Illustration from photo by Karl Leiker, at almost the same time as the previous slide/illustration. Older ST subscribers should compare this Cb with that photographed by Al Moller at Borger, Texas on June 5, 1982 (Illustrated in ST, Vol. 6, No. 1). Note the similarity in the small diameter of the Cb base and the clearly evident, rotational striations wrapping up the outer walls of both towers.

Given the history of the first storm, we chose to head east. That VIP-6 52,000 foot "storm was producing wall clouds in a cyclical fashion --fun, fun, fun! There was much tree damage and power line damage west of Zurich, where the first wall cloud had been wrapped with rain" (At least four tornadoes were sighted near Zurich: 2 miles south and 2 miles west at 4:54 PM CDT; 3.5 miles south and 5 miles west at 4:58 PM; 6-8 miles south at 5:03 PM and then nearly missing Zurich at 5:13 PM; and 4 miles north at 5:17 PM.). "We followed that second dark, low wall cloud at close range to Stockton, where the rotation suddenly ended and the base dissipated. The western storm had begun to rain into the eastern, which led to the sudden demise.

The only show in town now was the new supercell about 20 miles west of Stockton. What a monster! This storm had a short cumuliform flank to the south-southwest, feeding a monstrous, rapidly rotating updraft -- which flared into a thick, hard edged anvil. Right under the center of the updraft (from our perspective) hung a swirling wall cloud with awesome rotation; scud tags flying south on the rear and north on the front. We watched, dodging 1" hailstones and frequent staccato lightning, as scud clouds formed almost on the ground and spiralled up into the wall cloud at amazing speeds. Numerous subvortices formed and coexisted, as a tornado ground its way northward" (The third tornado photographed by the Rasmussens, it was initially reported just west of Damar at 5:46 PM and, again, 15 miles south of Logan at 6:04 PM. Radar reflectivities ranged from VIP-5 to VIP-6.). "It became a monstrous condensation funnel, with a very low wall cloud lifting dust over a wide radius. I'm sure the damage swath exceeded a mile in width and about 25 miles in length during its 35 minute transit. Early in the life of this maxi-, a spindly tornado formed on the gust front flank, southwest of the large wall cloud,

This tornado, the day's fifth, did eventually become obscured with rain. We shot many minutes of Super-8. From our vantage point, we could not hear the sixth tornado several miles to the west, but we did hear continuous rumbling thunder overhead. Just after the tornado became obscured, I noticed that the gust-front induced base had begun to thicken and lower. A wall cloud began to form but shoved little rotation. At this point, I gave a Kansas Highway Patrol Officer a one minute lesson on cyclic tornadogenesis and told him of the likelihood of another tornado nearby soon.

In a matter of five minutes, rotation had become intense, and two to three minutes later a narrow condensation funnel reached the ground. The tornado widened to several hundred yard: and dust, patches revealed wind speeds at least as strong as I measured in the Lakeview, Texas movie -- over 150 MPH!

This tornado (number seven for us) crossed the highway about three miles north of us and then gradually shrank. This is the first time I've seen a large tornado evolve from a narrow tornado and then rope out. The rope stage occurred only a couple of miles east of us (we had moved north). Suddenly, 'soliton' waves ripple down the funnel, and several seconds later it was gone. By now, it has become second nature for me to head east to the gust front, ahead of a dissipating tornado, for another chance. The lowered base east of #7 showed very little rotation, but we tagged along anyway.

Again, as with the other storms, rotation increased in a matter of minutes from almost indiscernible to intense. Tornado number eight formed about a mile to our north, just north of the Kirwin Reservoir" at about 6:22 PM. "Howling, steamy inflow followed it as it moved north. Again, the tornado was large and very intense. As with the others, my visual F-meter said F3 or F4. A sunlit clear slot illuminated the tornado brightly against the jet black rain core. We moved further east into the inflow sector and then north again. As we drove north of Kensington, numerous rescue vehicles were seen. We passed a nearby, destroyed farmhouse, with a tank spewing propane into the air. The police stopped us but then let us travel at our own risk. And it was a risk!

The tornado, which was just ahead and near the road, appeared quite large and intense, perhaps 1/4 mile wide with a rapidly swirling, laminar, brightly lit funnel to the ground. To its left (NW) was a very dark rain core. The wind switched to the west and gusted so strongly that small trees were bent to the ground. At about that time, I spotted another huge tornado, a barrel shaped debris cloud about a mile across, separated from the laminar tornado by about a mile. I watched just long enough to see that these maxi-tornadoes were rotating around each other, and that the western-most vortex was grinding southeast -- right toward us!!

We did a U-turn and battled the wind, until we were again safe. As we watched, the two tornadoes came into alignment. We heard (or read?) that they had combined into one monster tornado, but I think this was an optical illusion. However, at this point, we had run out of film (five rolls of slides and five Super-8) and gas, so we had to let the storm go. The nearest station was a 20 mile detour to the east. After nine significant tornadoes, we still had enough energy to try one more intercept, near dusk. We didn't see anymore, however, but did find Al Moller, who had picked up the storm at about the same time we left it -- and he saw at least one more dramatic mile-wide twister" (other reports suggest he may have seen two or three more, including some in Nebraska).

The eighth tornado photographed by the Rasmussens. This illustration adapted from a photo by Bob Scales in The Phillips County Review, Phillipsburg, KS, May 15, 1985.(Shades of Wichita Falls!). Mr. Scales took this picture as the tornado crossed US 36 near Agra.

Unfortunately, our Texas chasers, Roy Britt and Tim Marshall (the same team that caught six big ones near Pampa, Texas on May 19, 1982) never did catch up and had to settle for crisp, magnificent anvils; penetrating tops; and massive back building towers, at a distance, whose bases would always be just beyond range. After a hard day's drive from Dallas, Texas to Garden City, Kansas -- total frustration. Moreover, on the newscast that night, they went through the exquisite torture of graphically seeing just what they had missed.

KAYS-TV in Hays had sent newscaster Ed Zimmer out with a video camera to take a few random shots of the storm cell to the north. Two miles north of Ellis and in 20-30 MPH SE flow and a few sprinkles (no lightning), he saw a tail forming under the cloud base to his west-southwest and knew immediately what was coming. For the next 16 minutes, he telecast from five miles away the complete life cycle of a Kansas tornado as a sharp, clear laminar column, with occasional quick condensation forming at both cloud base and ground wrapping around the vortex in excellent light! (..after a mere 16 mile chase)! Said Roy of Tim, "I thought he was going to have a fit."

Karl Leiker concludes: "This was, for me, a most exciting experience; almost too exciting, as I neglected to perform some of the observational chores needed to document a tornado -- call it funnel psychosis. Although born and raised in western Kansas, this is the first tornado I have seen at a reasonably close distance, as an adult. I recall a tornado on my grandfather's farm, but I was only about 6 at the time. Fortunately, a KAYS-TV news team was able to video-tape that tornado (It was shown on CBS national TV), and I was able to purchase a copy of the tape. The latter, along with my slides, will be useful in my classes on Physical Geography and Introduction to Weather this coming Fall at Westfield." Although Karl has done some cloud pursuits in New England, he observes that "chasing in the Northeast is rather impossible. One can hardly drive the roads in good weather because of heavy traffic, and the hills and trees make observation difficult. My hypothesis is that if one cannot obtain a good chicken fried steak, then you're not in good chase country! - - - Thanks for your help, David. I cannot wait for May, 1986."

(The last word on this singular day will be given by Erik Rasmussen.)

"I'm writing this account from notes almost two months after the chase. My memories are images almost as vivid as the real thing. The fury of these storms, especially the second, may not be seen again for many years. I still have not seen my movies" (letter sent to ST at the end of June) "but doubt that they captured the unbelievable strength of these tornadoes. If any footage is worth showing, I'll try to bring it to the 'Conference on Severe Local Storms' in Indianapolis, Indiana, October 29 to November 1." (Editor; We're looking forward to it!)

Hey! Where were our April chasers and long distance champs, Gene Moore and Chris Johns (National Geographic writer and photographer) during this period? Why, in North Dakota, of course, where NSSL told the Rasmussens to go! And how did they do? Well, it seems that the capricious storm gods were also watching over them. At the same time that the Rasmussens were in "fat city", Chris and Gene were charging back from a frustrating three day chase in the northern plains -- with only one funnel cloud to show! Since Gene had to hurry back to Norman to take his wife and two month old son to Boulder, Colorado for a new job as the PROFS chase coordinator, they drove straight through Saturday night and Sunday morning. Taking turns at the wheel and sleeping, Chris was the one driving a little fast through southern Kansas Saturday night, when radar and a State Trooper stopped him near El Dorado.

The solicitous officer, noting the Colorado plates on Chris's rented Jeep Wagoneer and his Seattle's drivers license, asked if Chris were trying to reach Denver while southbound at XX miles per hour in southern Kansas (Perhaps one error in judgement was symptomatic of several others -like sanity). Chris assured him they weren't lost, despite the circumstantial evidence, and went on to explain that he was returning to Oklahoma to work on a magazine story. Chris went on to admit having lived in Kansas and that he had been a reporter/photographer for the Topeka Journal several years earlier (Trying a little of the "old boy ploy" with the Kansas Trooper). The Officer said, "I thought you looked familiar. Didn't you get an award for something you did?" "Yes," Chris replied, "I did an article on Governor Bennett." Said the Officer, "Why, at that time, I was Governor Bennett's personal driver!" Hey! Some coincidence! Give him a warning? No-o-o-o way. The friendly Trooper went ahead and did his duty, and a fine ($) time was had by all.

But, hey, wait a minute. I did speak of the capricious storm gods. Leaving our two mega-miler pros "sinking in the west" to the glint of a Kansas star, another chaser, amateur Bruce Pettus from Seattle, had a rather different experience. With the State and date deleted here (for reasons that, will become apparent), this was Bruce's account. "I was pushing 75 MPH, when a XXXX State Trooper, going in the opposite direction, nailed me with his radar gun. ...My detector went off, but I didn't hear it until it was too late. I had the Weather Radio on full blast with my finger jammed in it, trying to eliminate some of the static and improve the signal; the AM-FM radio was blaring away; the CB was on full blast; and my eyes were on the cloud, not on the approaching Trooper. My immediate thought was - "Oh, s@!t! My sec- thought was, should I pull down that little dirt road and see if he finds me. No, I'll just continue on -- dig out a road map, slow down and scan the sky. It's worked before." (Bruce has a Storm Spotter sticker on his back window and "TRSTMS" on his license plates). "About a minute later, I see his red light in my rear-view mirror, so I pull over. He saunters up to the car, 'You want to step out? I'm going to have to see your license.' ...I said that I guess I got a little carried away with my speed, and had the weather radio and FM on full blast and the CB radio cranked up -- trying to keep in touch with the rest of my party, and was paying more attention to the cloud than my speed. He said something like - 'You one of them storm chasers? I knew it when I saw you go by in such a hurry, and then I saw your license plate and the Skywarn sticker. I said to myself, I bet I got me a storm chaser.' (Oh, oh). He handed back my license. 'That cloud isn't going to do anything,' he said. 'I've been watching it for the last 40 minutes -- looked pretty good for awhile.' I guess he had been in touch with the NWS in XXXX; anyway, he told me that that cloud went from a Level-2 on radar to a Level-6 within 20 minutes. He then called around to his other spotter contacts in the area and advised me that nothing else was going on -- or up. It turns out that he is a storm chaser too! Also, a subscriber to Storm Track!! He is primarily interested in shooting video of storms and told me that he has portable wind gauges and various other equipment. In short, this was the nicest XXXX State Trooper you could ever hope to meet, while doing 75 MPH. Quite an experience. No ticket -- not even a warning!!" (Editor: Can you imagine the odds against a Storm Track patrolman stopping a Storm Track chaser in the middle of the plains on any given day? Put that in Ripley's!)

On May 11, Roy Britt and Tim Marshall continued their chase from Garden City, across Kansas to northeast of Kansas City. They did see a storm with a flanking line, but it only rained and produced small hail. The next day, Sunday, brought them back to Texas and Wichita Falls, where they watched several Cbs develop southwest of the city about 4:00 PM. They "merged into a storm complex, producing large hailat Burkburnett." At one point, they were under a wall cloud, with rear flank downdraft winds at 55 MPH.

ST's Editor was also on the Wichita Falls storm, where an earlier surface analysis at the Oklahoma City NWS Office indicated he should go on his first chase day in storm country. So did the analysis for the OU and NSSL Chase Teams #1 and #2, which made it unanimous. Everyone reading the same signs and going to the very same place. Wonderful! So what else was there besides that wall cloud? A small funnel that the alert Editor photographed between two small, steeply sheared towers. What wasn't there? Well, the OU chase team called the NSSL radar room at 7:00 PM. and they only reported small T-showers, nothing much up there. Well, what wasn't where all the other chasers were -- an hour later were a half dozen major tornadoes around Oklahoma City, right in OU's and NSSL's backyard! Major damage and injuries at Harrah. Even local newscasters took beautifully back-lit video of the spinning funnels. Now the Editor can understand how he can miss a few; after all, he's an amateur. But when the pro's bust, hey! Who can you trust?