Wednesday - May 11, 2005 - Tornado near Ulysses, Kansas

A dryline would be the target of the day in western Kansas as a strong upper storm system began to move into the plains. Fear of strong capping was what kept us out of the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles and we worked to get as far north as we could.

The result was us hanging around the towns of Scott City and Leoti, KS for much of the afternoon. Things were starting to look bad for us as the cap ended up being stronger than forecast even in western Kansas. It took until late afternoon before the dryline showed signs of life. When storms formed... they were made up of skinny updrafts that had short lifespans.

Still, we waited. As we got closer to sunset... a few storms started showing they had a bit better substance to them. We finally targeted a severe storm near Lakin that had nice structure and some hail near golfball size. But... it was near dark and anything that was going to happen from this point on would be without daylight.

Despite being severe... the Lakin storm had what appeared to be an updraft too small to support a tornado threat. I then targeted a storm near Ulysses that looked bigger and had signs of sustained shear on radar. Less than 10 minutes after starting toward this storm a tornado warning was issued based on spotter reports of a tornado near Ulysses.

I had to pass through a bit of core with the storm... but as I cleared it - a large tornado became visible (barely due to darkness) to my east. Here is what the video looked like in normal record mode. I switched to nightshot mode and got a better look at it. Starting east from about six miles north of Ulysses I could see the tornado was still on the ground. Another view. With the grain of the video still being on the poor side... I switched to “super-night shot” mode. Here are a couple of views of the cone tornado: one two This image shows that I am now close enough to start seeing debris. The tornado struck a farmstead as it crossed the road in front of me... the damage did not look to be significant. Here is the tornado approaching and crossing the road. For those with hi-speed internet connections... here is a video clip (11MB) of the tornado crossing the road.

I was able to get within a few hundred yards of the tornado as it started to weaken. Power flash. Tornado in it’s rope stage distant north.

Later... I was shooting lightning as the storm approached Garden City. This image shows not only the impressive updraft and lightning.... but a small tornado under the center of the updraft. A bonus tornado and an great end to what appeared was going to be a bust of a day.