May 29, 2004 Harper/Sumner County Kansas
(7 tornados...one good)



A reunion chase of sorts with myself, Robert Sternadel, and Shane Perry.

Kenneth's comment: A poorly executed day which allowed us to pick the right area, but not anticipate and recognize how the storm evolved. This caused us to essentially miss a tornado outbreak. Yes, we saw seven tornados, but we were badly out of position for five of them due my poor understanding of the evolution of the event which left us on the wrong side of the damage paths.

A timeline of the day:

5:32 P.M. We stopped 3 miles north of Alva to watch wallcloud produce a weakly rotating funnel to the west.

5:48 P.M. Beautiful bell-shaped updraft to our northwest.

6:23 P.M. We entered Kansas. I immediately became more optimistic since Kansas was my magic state in 2004.

6:45 P.M. On Hwy 2, 1.5 miles southwest of the turn east. We get small hail and storm overhead to the north continues to look weaker.

6:48-7:15 P.M. At the point where the road turns east (16 miles west of Anthony, KS). Things began to "get more interesting" as we had a cloud level cyclonic circulation overhead and convection developing to our east.

7:22 P.M. Arrived at location where we stopped as we saw the second wall cloud develop from the cloud to our north.

7:25 P.M. Beautiful tornado #1 finally reaches the ground to our North-northeast. we were located just off Hwy 2, 8 miles west of Anthony.

A 23X time lapse of the above tornado:

CLICK HERE for 23X windows media version (best)
CLICK HERE for 23X Real media version
CLICK HERE for 23X MPEG version (not as good)

7:40 P.M. Still not really understanding that the primary storm circulation was actually far to our east, we moved north closer to the tornado to our north. Tornado ends at 7:46 P.M. This took us far from the area of the storm now producing large tornados. Wallcloud to north:

7:55 P.M. Tornado #2, a dark low contrast cone forms to our east-southeast. This is a crappy video capture since we were still too far away.

7:57 P.M. Tornado #3 (landspout?) forms next to the persistent (yet sadly distracting) wallcloud to our north.

8:04 P.M. HUGE wallcloud persists to our north. Like an idiot...I decide we should watch it.

8:04 P.M. the hard to see from our position tornado #4 (other chaser indicated wedge..our view crap again since we are still many miles away)

8:04-8:07 we are stopped about 5 southeast of Harper to watch wallcloud to north (we don't take clues easily) and what we can see of tornado #4 to east (which wasn't much).

8:10 P.M. Tornado #5 to the east. It seemed to be south of tornado #4 and is more of a black stovepipe. (Surprisingly enough, we could see it...sort of)

8:15 P.M. Wallcloud to north is weakening as we try to get east toward the main show. (An hour late...) The "two hook" radar image certainly shows how this happened.

8:20-8:45 P.M. It takes 25 minutes to go about 7 miles with a detour through an F3 damage path. We are stopped by downed trees, powerlines, etc. Instead of taking the hint and going home...we keep going.

8:48 P.M. Tornado #6 to our northeast. Dusty light colored tornado getting the very last of the sunlight.
The confirmed (by NWS damage survey) tornado didn't show up well in this video capture (not surprising considering our great distance):

8:55 P.M. Tornado #7 to our northeast. Since the sun has set, the tornado is a soft white cone against a dark background. Would have been quite spectacular is there was more light. (Or we had been closer)

9:25 P.M. We run into yet another road block for downed power lines. This was the end of the "chase". Being low on gas, having no known way to continue east, and being dark...it was time to go home.

Before sunset, back in Oklahoma, Tonya took a quick digital picture of a huge supercell moving north of our house.

1:07 A.M. Arrived home. 481.3 miles for the day. One very nice tornado, one landspout, and five wedges from 10 miles away.

Another picture of the car the next day after chase. It was cleaned a few days before this chase.