Day 11 - Even the Storms Are Tired

Even the Storms Are Tired
2004 05 18
KS to IA

I started the day by heading to the lobby to try the high speed internet again, but had no luck. Then we found there was no local number for Mark’s AOL link either. We needed data!

We met Kurt from Grand Rapids, MI, David Diehl from Angola, IN, and Rich Cenci from Dexter, MI in the lobby. Kurt said he and David had managed to get the high speed connection to work in their room, so we ended up having a data party there.

Things didn’t look all that interesting in Kansas for the day, except in the far south and east, but the situation looked a lot better in Iowa for Day 2. Some chasers, including George and crew, decided to head straight for Iowa and get set up for Day 2. We decided to head to Topeka and check data there. We’d head south if anything was happening, or else continue on to Iowa. Rich tagged along but Kurt and David were excited about southern Kansas and headed off in that direction. Ron and Jack decided to head off to the southeast.

We had lunch in Abiline, KS around 3 pm, but we weren’t able to get data there. So, we stopped for data as planned in Topeka at 4:20 pm. The SPC had issued a tornado-related mesoscale discussion for southeast Kansas, and there were cells popping up to our south, so we decided to head south to see what we could find. I drove with Rich to do on-the-fly analysis using his cell phone data connection.

South of Topeka, we found a cell with a lowering and tried to get into position. As the storm intensified, the lowering grew into a big shelf cloud. Once we got closer, we realized this cell looked a lot more intense than it really was. There really wasn’t much left of it except a dramatic-looking shelf cloud.

Rich and Sarah check out what’s left of our storm near Emporia.

Neat looking structure, but no lightning and hardly any rain.

We decided to call it a night and head to the Omaha, Nebraska area. It would be several hours of driving, but we wanted to be in good position for the next day. No one could decide on what to eat so we missed several opportunities for a dinner stop. We ended up in Iowa just east of Nebraska City, Nebraska, which was target area for the next day. We got hotel rooms and were looking for a bite to eat, but it was around midnight now. The Subway at the neighbouring truck stop was closed and the only food was at the truck stop grill. I risked a grilled cheese sandwich, Mark and Rich were a bit more brave. Sarah said she was too tired for food. All in all, not a memorable day weather-wise.