2004 MAY 24: NORTH KANSAS SUPERCELLS

By the time we arrived in eastern Republic County, the tornadoes were over but the structure show was still playing to a packed house.  Taken about 5:45PM looking west.
 


5:57 PM Washington Cty

5:45 Republic County

4:00 PM extreme southeast Nebraska near Rulo
This was one of the tougher chase days of my life.  We missed all the tornadoes, leaving a storm in Missouri thirty minutes before it produced and arriving at the Republic County storm too late to see the last tornado, reported near nine miles northwest of Linn at around 5:29 PM.  We were only about fifteen miles away at this point, but saw nothing we could identify as a tornado on the ground. While we were raising between storms, the Republic County cell produced numerous tornadoes including three on the ground at the same time. 

We arrived in time to witness the storm's structure which was still impressive, and also a funnel that appeared 5:57 between Greenlead and Linn, in Washington County.  No evidence that this touched down.  Looking over the imagery, we didn't come away entirely empty-handed.  With the great structure and the funnel, it wasn't quite the nightmare I'd remembered.

We later pursued some storms near Topeka, but again arrived too late to see whatever tornadoes they had produced.  Some days the bear eats you.
 



I drove a couple hundred miles around southern Nebraska, northern Kansas, and eastern Kansas, and all I got was this lousy funnel.  Heh.


Cyclone Road