May 18, 2013 Rozel, KS tornadoes

                         Saturday, May 18, 2013: 2 supercells, 2 funnel clouds 2 tornadoes.
 

This morning I was more excited about chasing, since the parameters of vertical wind shear and instability were favorable for supercells and possible tornadoes across much of west central and northwest KS. We left North Platte, NE for lunch in Colby, KS. I was able to make a forecast in the area of the dryline from east of DDC north-northeast to Wakeeney, KS where a weak OFB was located just north of I-70. We got on multi-cell storms south of Wakeeney and finally one storm took over west of Ransom, KS. This storm took an hour to start looking good and produced a nice rotating wall cloud. The storm looked close to be producing a tornado before strong outflow undercut the updraft. We kept following new updraft occlusion farther south but when we were getting 30 KT northerly winds, well south of the southernmost updraft. Therefore, I decided to head southward along the dryline for more isolated storms developing. We drove east through a line of 3 updrafts as we drove east-northeast on state highway 156, northeast of Hanston, KS (I remember this route from the 1995 Hanston, KS tornado). The northern updraft west of Rozel, was high based but had some nice mid-level funnels. We set up southeast of Rozel, KS and watched the southern storm move northeast and intensify. In several minutes the southern storm developed a nice wall cloud and then a funnel, which soon came in contact with the ground. The tornado intensified as it became a large barrel shape. The tornadic storm moved more to the due north, so we were about 5 miles east of the tornado. It finally weakened northeast of Rozel, KS. The updraft occluded and reformed just east of our position and we drove a few miles northeast towards the new rotating wall cloud. Then suddenly a tornado formed about 2 miles to our northeast. We sat on the south side of road as the tornado moved back west, about a mile to our north. The tornado went through a long rope out phase. This was a very good day, the best of my 12 day chase vacation! 2 supercells, 2 funnel clouds and 2 tornadoes.

Chased with Nancy Gargan (wife).

Chase route:
https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&msa=0&msid=200264547481718946439.0004e0be99e4de7f7da26

1st tornado, 3 SW of Rozel, KS Tornado.

1st tornado, 3 SW of  Rozel, KS Tornado with background CG

2nd tornado, 4.5 miles east of Rozel, KS.