May 31

We started the day in McPherson, KS, and the models showed another bonus chase day. Early morning storms formed just south of McPherson and covered the ground with large hail in and around Wichita. These storms also laid out a well-defined outflow boundary across northern Oklahoma that would provide added convergence and enhanced low-level shear. A stout cap was also forecast to strengthen throughout the day and limit initiation until late evening.

We cruised south toward Wichita, ate lunch in Arkansas City, and found a park to sit and watch the weather for a while. The outflow boundary was easily discernible to our south with a long horizontal line of cumulus all along it. Within a couple of hours, it appeared that the best chance for initiation would be just to our south and west near the intersection of a frontal system and other outflow boundaries. We slid south to Tonkawa, OK and continued to wait for the cap to break.


The mid-level warm air advection didn't help matters despite the strong low-level convergence in northern Oklahoma. Still, a very subtle shortwave was noted on the meso analysis pages and was moving into northeast Oklahoma where the cap was somewhat weaker. Just after 5 p.m., towers did manage to build just to our south but were quickly knocked down because of the cap. However, continued growth to our east eventually resulted in a couple of small supercells that developed east of Ponca City.



These supercells quickly grew and within a few minutes were tornado warned. In fact, spotters and chasers were reporting a tornado with both storms. We drove east on Highway 60 through Ponca City and Burbank in an attempt to intercept the storms. The closer were got to the storms, we noticed well-defined wall clouds with both supercells that would occasionally produce funnels. A couple of problems happened rather suddenly at this point. First, we encountered hilly terrain and a multitude of trees (reminded me of Mississippi chasing). Second, the storms moved off the outflow boundary and rapidly weakened. At this point, the closest storms were in Kansas and only posed a hail and wind threat.

We called the chase off near Tulsa and drove back to Oklahoma City. As we drove toward Oklahoma City, a large supercell developed just west of the city after sunset and provided a spectacular lightning show. As we arrived to the hotel, I went straight to sleep because we planned on leaving for Starkville early in the morning.

Unquestionably, this was the most successful TIG trip ever, and we chased on all but three days during the trip and saw a total of 9 tornadoes! It was a pleasure meeting all of you and getting to know you, and I wish all of you luck in your future endeavors! If you would like to drop me a line, send me an e-mail to jdj8@msstate.edu