May 30, Friday Wow! We got some very exciting weather last night...rolling into Medicine Lodge, KS again this year turned out to be an interesting endeavor after all. Surface conditions were optimal with mainly blue skies, temperatures of 90 degrees, and dew points hovering in the middle and upper 60's for most of the day. We also had a good 5-15 mph southeasterly wind to fuel the thunderstorms that were likely to form later in the day. At 6 pm we noticed a huge supercell 170 miles to our north that displayed a classic overshooting top and sheared anvil. By 9:30 pm cells were rapidly developing to the west and moving east. Our media crew departed at about that time to cautiously approach these cells for an early-night lightning photo shoot. The science team stayed behind at the hotel in Medicine Lodge to monitor the situation and provide real-time updates. Our lightning detectors started to display frequent strikes toward the west as well. The cells were still over 150 miles away, but visibly had impressive anvils and intracloud lightning. After hours of waiting and monitoring, the cells were nearly overhead by 1:00 am. Radar-indicated mesocyclones were detected in the cell moving directly toward Medicine Lodge. We observed an immense wall cloud due west of our location... we estimated it was about 8 miles across. Our media crew also returned by 1:00 am with reports of torrential rain, wall clouds, and 1" diameter hail. The skies were very violent now (as opposed to the peaceful sight of a distant lightning-filled supercell). There were several lightning strikes per second, and surface inflow out of the east was also increasing. Radar images were showing small showers and insect echoes as far away as 150 miles being drawn rapidly westward into the squall line. After hours of watching this storm, we finally heard thunder at ~1:00 am which did not end until after 4:00 am. At 1:30 am the powerful cells moved directly over us, releasing heavy rain, frequent lightning, and pea-sized hail. New cells constantly developed behind the original, resulting in large quantities of rainfall. Barber County (Medicine Lodge's county) was under a severe thunderstorm warning from 1:20 am to 3:35 am, a combination of four separate warnings. >From 2:00-4:00 am, the eastward-propagating squall line that had just passed over Medicine Lodge collided with another squall line moving to the south. The two lines added together like a zipper; the line that formed along the collision zone was stronger than either of the lines that created it. For those who are interested, a NEXRAD radar loop of this event will be available on MESO's webpage after June 6th. After a few hours of sleep, Memorial Day promises to be another active day, so we are maintaining our base in Medicine Lodge and waiting for what the afternoon will bring to us. Thank you for your time and interest. -Chris Howell and Brian McNoldy May 31 Wow. We scored...BIG TIME. We forecast independently, so as not to influence each other, and though there was a huge temptation was to head west as soon as that mesocyclone popped up in Dodge City, wiser minds prevailed and we headed south. We realized that angle of approach is of critical importance when expecting the kind of weather we do, so we positioned ourselves in Alva OK, and waited until we saw something we could approach safely. It was like having a living text book. It was all there. Everything. Yes, funnel clouds, wall clouds, rotation. We were first on the scene, and a few NSSL cars showed up shortly after. By the time we decided to depart, it was like a chaser's convention. Everyone was mannerly, no one stepped on anyone's toes...to our knowledge. But we enjoyed the solitude of being there alone while it lasted. Of course, with the hills and dips on Route 34, we had tremendous trouble keeping the cell link and lost our radar more often than not. We caught a tornado on the ground, and a few ambitious funnel clouds...pictures to come on the web page. As we redeployed to avoid the core, we once again lost radar, and tried to follow the NSSL car out...as we were virtually blind and it was getting dark...but regained radar and used our preplanned southerly escape route. We headed east in retreat, losing radar again, and intended to head east then north back to Medicine Lodge. I regained radar just west of Alva, and was able to grab one image. One meso cut off the north route home and another was building behind us. We pulled over in Alva...did a quick summit conference, and with the help of two locals, found nearby hail shelter for the vehicles. We only had about a 5 minute window, we figured. Unfortunately, the vehicles were shielded somewhat, but the little coffee shop/truck stop we stopped in was all glass. Our safety team quickly established the best available shelters in the establishment, which we determined to be the men's and women's bathroom, and updated the other refugees (two workers, a few customers, and several people escaping hail like we were) of where they should go "just in case". About two minutes later, the sirens went off...one tornado on the ground 12 miles to the west and headed due east. 2 1/2 '' hail as well. We got a tremendous rain, pea-sized hail, about 80mph winds...but all people and vehicles escaped harm. Two young Skywarn spotters came wheeling in during the heat of the storm...visibly shaken. So friends at home, if you were monitoring and saw the storms in the Dodge City area and east, and wondered if we were in them...you betcha! Our mobile lab proved itself at last, acting as a terrific command post, getting our chasers safely in and safely out...as well as allowing us to adjust our forecasts while on the road, compute and print maps, and archive data as it was recorded. If we had, however, allowed for only one mode of tracking, we would have been in serious trouble. When the cell phone connection to the internet failed, we used as back up scanners, two ways the lightening sensor, and the on board TV with the weather channel. The loss of cell phone signal could not be avoided. AND, our transmission glitches disappeared completely...McWar seemed to want to chase as badly as we did. What we learned: make your plans in cool calculations, and STICK to them when excitement edges in. Don't depend on any one thing...anything mechanical, electrical or human can and will fail from time to time. The committee idea works. Everyone has the responsibity of SOMETHING, archiving, monitoring, safety, mapping, navigation.....and above all, choose your partners carefully and establish a FIRM chain of command. Had we operated and less like a military operation, with out command and basic convoy rules, last night might have had a totally different outcome. -Brian McNoldy 6/3 After Tuesday's HOT and calm conditions (and Phantom Menace), Wednesday contained some hope for possibly severe afternoon/evening thunderstorms. We left Medicine Lodge (our unofficial headquarters for the week) around 1:00 pm and headed west for Meade, KS. We waited there for initialization to begin, struggling to maintain a cell-phone connection the entire time (our mobile link to the internet). By about 6:00 pm, we left Meade and made our way to Guymon, OK, which is in the panhandle just next to Texas. The air was hot and humid with a strong SE wind. Cells fired up in extreme eastern CO/NM and were moving generally eastward. When they reached us, they were disorganized and non-severe. The chase came to an end, and was seemingly a bust. However, shortly after turning back east at 9:00 pm, we witnessed a complete double rainbow (with frequent lightning under the arcs) to the east and a classic Great Plains sunset (with silhouetted cumulonimbus) to the west. It was one of the most inspiring entire-sky panoramas any of us had ever seen. The 5-hour drive back to Medicine Lodge was also filled with frequent lightning... some cloud-to-ground, but most occurring just under the cloud bases. Occasionally, lightning would jump from one cloud base to another, branching across the entire sky. Shortly after 1:00 am, we arrived back in Medicine Lodge very tired but very exhilarated. Thursday looked to be another potentially active day, but that has yet to be seen. -Brian McNoldy