18 June 2019
“See that, Chachi!”
Dalhart, TX to Hugoton, KS (948 km)
I was up at seven and went for a walk. I had my oatmeal and was just sitting down to work on my photos when I got a phone call from Bill saying we were heading out at 9:30 instead of 10:30 as the tornado risk in Kansas had gone up to 10%.
We did a quick briefing in the parking lot and then we booted it east, driving through Liberal to Meade, Kansas where we had a quick lunch at Subway. We continued east, turning north at Greensburg as storms were starting to show on the satellite.
Bill was aiming for the Pratt area but development to the north had us turn towards Kinsley to catch an early afternoon storm. We stopped to watch a very low cloud and Bill was interested in the movement to the left of the tree.
The storm continued east, so we loaded up and followed it for a short time, pulling off to watch it drop a weak tornado. It was so short lived, few got a photo.
We continued on only to see a second tornado drop.
We stumbled out of the van and got some pics of this one.
I realized later that my action cam on top of my camera was also still going. It got fewer raindrops on it than my timelapse.
It was short lived, but defined enough to be called a tornado. We reported the two touchdowns.
We continued east of Kinsley a short distance and stopped for a few minutes to watch.
The base was very low.
They called it a knuckle dragger.
We were there long enough that I had to cross the road to continue my time-lapse.
We turned south to follow another storm, but it started to disintegrate. It was only mid-afternoon, so Bill decided to go back west to catch a storm coming out of Colorado. We got rooms booked in Hugoton again, and continued past the hotel without stopping to meet a storm moving in our direction.
We stopped on the edge of wheat field and the storm structure was becoming well defined.
The shelf cloud was so wide, I needed both cameras to time-lapse it. One on the left side and the other on the middle.
We stayed long enough for the leading edge of the cloud to get over us and it started to rain.
I stuck it out in the rain and dust while everyone else sought shelter in the vans.
Cathy G. took this video of me finishing up a panorama.
I love my buff. Keeps the sun off my ears, the pollen out of my sinuses and the dust out of my lungs.
And keeps the hat on my head.
We headed back east towards Hugoton, going in and out of the storm to get back to the town. The wind, rain and lightning were pretty intense. We pulled into the Best Western and shortly after we got in, the storm went overhead with some nice lightning.
By the time I got to my room, the hail was passing overhead.
Then I checked the mileage. We did 948 kilometres.
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See also: Bill Reid’s entry on 18 June