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Weather Journal

with Kevin Myatt

Day 13: A Kansas beast

Posted May24, 2008 at 02:17 AM

wedge6small.jpg

MANHATTAN, Kan. -- I only saw it for a few minutes, but that's as long as I needed to know I didn't want to mess with it. Early Friday evening, we saw a huge "wedge" tornado between Ness City and Ellis, Kan., at least our ninth tornado of the trip. A wedge doesn't look like a funnel or rope, but is essentially a big cylinder of cloud on the ground, sometimes a half-mile wide or more. This tornado moved along a very long path in central Kansas, and we have heard reports that it may have struck Ellis, Kan. It was on the second supercell thunderstorm we intercepted. The first spawned a tornado that caused some damage in Gove County, Kan., but we really couldn''t see it, though we saw some amazing circulation with that storm. We kept a wide berth from the wedge tornado, seeing it only at a distance. Perhaps, in time, I'll get a photo up, though I didn't even take one myself,. as low to the ground it was and as late in the day as it was.

The end of the day found us east of the same storm that spawned the wedge tornado, as tornado sirens sounded eerily while driving through Hays, Kan. As strong wind gusts rocketed past us toward the tornado somewhere in the murky storm milesto our west, a couple of fire and rescue workers from Hays pulled up beside us to get information on the storms. Fortunately for them, the storm was slipping just west of Hays.

It's another tired post-chase late night and the next day could be another stormy one, though farther east. That's why we're in Manhattan, Kan., tonight, likely to slip into eastern Nebraska on Sunday.


Follow Kevin's progress on this map.

The most recent video from Storm Chase 2008 was posted May 23. It shows a tornado near WaKeeney, Kansas.

For more on Storm Chase 2008, click here.

Comments

# 1

[May 24, 2008 11:51 AM]

Quigg Lawrence : →http://www.quiggpix.com

Awesome video. Kevin I knew you were bound to hit a good one!

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Mug of Kevin Myatt

Kevin Myatt works on the copy desk for The Roanoke Times and is its principal weather geek, writing a weekly weather column and advising the newsroom on weather topics. He helps guide students on a storm chasing trip to the central U.S. each May and was an editor for "Hurricanes and the Middle Atlantic States."

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