Summer Thunderstorms on the Great Plains

While I spend most of my days $STORM chasing (if you catch my drift), during the summer I occasionally take a day off if the models are calling for a high chance of spectacular storms or tornados, and I'll spend the afternoon and evening storm chasing across the Great Plains of Kansas.

Tuesday, May 1 was one such day about a week ago. I headed off with some cousins and a friend and we went blitzing across the state chasing the tail end storm in a long line of storms.

The tail end storm is usually the SW-most storm in the line of storms that stretches from SW to NE. The line of storms usually moves from SW to NE because when the north-moving wet air from the Gulf of Mexico hits east-moving dry air from the desert, it causes the shear that produces rotation for thunderstorms and tornados and the resulting storms move in the average of the two directions: NE. My cousin who is an amateur meteorologist would likely cringe at my simplistic description, but it does mostly describe reality. And let's be honest, all I care about are pretty pictures and not dying in the process. My needs are rather basic.

As the storm we were on eventually petered out, we raced north to catch a second line of storms that was mostly moving east along I-70. That second line of storms produced this tornado which we knew there was no way we could catch up to, but we raced north anyway to catch the tail end storm for sunset. It didn't disappoint:

The reason we like the tail-end storms (all else being equal) is two-fold:

1. There are fewer other storms to mess up strong, orderly inflow that feeds the storm.
2. There is often a clean break to clear air to the west (and sometimes south) of the storm, which gives it really nice definition. This also allows the storm structure to be lit from the west by the afternoon or setting sun.

We ended the evening beside a quiet pasture watching the line of storms to the north, filled with lots of lightning, pass slowly before us from west to east. I set up a quick time-lapse, though I wish I would have had more time as it was a great setup:

(I'd love to use d.tube instead, but it keeps giving me error messages! First it tells me I haven't uploaded a Snap, then when I upload the Snap, it says I've not uploaded the video.)

If you want a more mesmerizing version of the time-lapse on loop, check out this (albeit lower-res) GIF. If you want some storm time lapses that are 100x better than this, check out Mike Olbinski's Emmy-winning work.

Do you love or hate storms? What's your favorite storm photo or time-lapse of all time?