We departed Houston Friday evening with an initial target of north central Oklahoma. We planned a stop in Oklahoma City to get a few hours rest and refine our target by seeing what the morning soundings, etc looked like. On Saturday morning, we decided to head to Kansas and link up in Russell with David Drummond, who was leaving out of Lubbock.

As we headed up I-135 from Wichita towards Salina, we could see a few turkey towers starting to form, but nothing looked too promising on the XM WX Works system. As we got to Salina, we saw some nice development to the northwest, and we decided to head north toward Concordia instead of going to Russell, since that was where the action seemed to be. We contacted David and found that he had gotten waylaid and was going after some storms in Oklahoma instead. SPC had issued a Tornado Watch for the area, and the weather radio was filled with warnings about a “significant severe weather outbreak.”

As we headed north on US81, we started to pick up warnings of severe storms to the west and northwest of Concordia, heading northeast at 20 - 30 MPH. Finally, as we got closer to Concordia, NWS issued a Tornado Warning for the storm coming out of Mitchell County. WX Works showed nicely developing storms with rotation shown. Once we got into Concordia, the Tornado Warning for Mitchell County showed that the Doppler indicated Tornado was located 4 miles southwest of Beloit, KS, moving NE at 10 MPH. At that point, we decided to proceed west to the Jamestown, KS area to intercept the storm and stay on the east flank so we could observe and photograph the storm.

We proceeded west on KS Hwy 28 toward Jamestown, and observed a good deal of CG lightning as well as a few lowerings from what appeared to be a rather high base as the storm approached Jamestown. At approximately 17:20 local, NWS issued a Tornado Warning for northwest Cloud County, with the Doppler indicated tornado 12 miles SW of Jamestown. At that point, we were approximately 4 miles east of Jamestown. At this point, the CG increased, the storm lowered again and set up a nice base.

We drove through Jamestown, trying to find a good observation point. We heard that the Doppler indicated Tornado was located 4 miles SW of Scottsville, KS. A few minutes later, the Tornado sirens started sounding in Jamestown, and the locals began coming outside to look at the sky. Cloud County Sheriff’s Deputies headed through town to the southwest, taking a look at the storm. We noticed the base of the storm lowering more, and saw a lot of rotation on the XMWX for that cell. As the storm got closer, we started picking up pea to marble sized hail in Jamestown. NWS then reported the storm 9 MI SW of Jamestown, moving NE at 15 MPH. We headed up a road next to the Jamestown water tower, and once topping the hill, were given a beautiful view of the countryside to the SW, with the approaching supercell plainly in view. We set up in the parking lot of a small nursing home along the west side of Jamestown on the road that leads to St Mary’s cemetery. Our location was exactly one mile east of the cemetery entrance. The storm had lowered considerably by this time, and had put down a wall cloud that showed considerable rotation. Several small funnels dropped from the wall cloud and the storm base to the SE of the wall cloud over the next few minutes, but most receded back into the storm base. Almost all of the base area was observed to be rotating, and we knew at that time that a large tornado was going to form. A large heavy precipitation area was observed to the NE of the wall cloud area, making it difficult to observe if any additional development was going on in that area. Many funnels developed and dropped partially to the ground, but again receded into the base. While we were in this position, we again encountered marble sized hail, and heavy inflow winds. Windspeeds clocked were: 69MPH, 75MPH, 115MPH and 165PH!

A large, flat bottomed funnel developed under the wall cloud, and descended two or three times. The sirens began to sound again in Jamestown, drawing more of the locals out into their yards. The wall cloud continued to rotate, dragging in a number of smaller circulations that had been observed around it’s periphery. A smaller funnel developed to the SE of the wall cloud and dropped down for a brief touchdown. This funnel appeared to have anti-cyclonic rotation, while the rest of the base and wall cloud area were turning cyclonically. The funnel then receded back into the base, as did the majority of the lowering of the wall cloud. A few seconds later, the funnel under the wall cloud dropped down for a touchdown. Debris was seen coming up from the trees to the south of the cemetery area. As the wall cloud area crossed the road, three funnels which were rotating around each other dropped down from the wall cloud and approached the ground in the area of the cemetery. The local Sheriff instructed us to move from our position, so we did, taking up a position to the east of where we had been. The storm “veed” into a large wedge as it moved NE from the cemetery area, and circulating rain curtains could be seen rotating around the wedge. The sound of the wind could be heard over the NOAA radio, and as our vehicle rocked, we recorded the 165MPH wind speed.

We drove through downtown Jamestown to try to observe the storm from a better vantage point, and watched as the rain wrapped wedge moved NE across the western side of town. As the wedge crossed HWY 28, we videoed a secondary snake shaped funnel along the east side of the main circulation.

We drove to the south end of Jamestown along County Road 765 to get some better photos of the retreating storm. As we left Jamestown, we saw several additional funnels and actual touchdowns from the southern end of the storm. We continued further south on the county road, and stopped again when additional funnels developed. While parked here, we encountered more than twenty other chase vehicles, including a chase tour group with three vans. We watched more tornadoes, including a beautiful translucently lit white one that seemed to be intent on dropping next to our vehicle, and a rope tornado, develop and move SW to NE to the SE of Jamestown, along the back edge of the storm.

After the funnels dissipated, we traveled back into Jamestown, and then decided to go toward Belleville to intercept the storm again. We observed a good deal of tree damage as we skirted the eastern edge of downtown Jamestown, and headed back east toward Concordia. After an encounter with a dirt road that looked suspiciously like asphalt (and having to get help from a Kansas Wildcats fan and his kids after we slid around on mud for a few minutes), we headed through Concordia and then north on US 81 to catch back up to our storm.

As we traveled north on US 81, we could see the storm to our NW, as it tracked through the northern portion of Cloud County and into the southern portion of Republic County in the vicinity of Norway, KS. From our vantage point on the highway, we could see the large wedge in the distance as it continued NE. At 19:17 local, the storm still appeared to be a large wedge, and XMWX still showed several areas of major rotation in the storm. A few minutes later, the storm became too occluded to see the wall cloud/tornado area in the distance, but a number of small funnels developed and dissipated as the storm continued to the NE. As the storm crossed US81, we could see heavy precipitation and what appeared to be shafts of hail just to the east of the highway. At this point, the chaser caravan was encountered alongside the highway again.

Just south of the intersection of US81 and Rock Road, we observed what appeared to be a large funnel to the east of US81. WX Works showed several areas of intense rotation in the area where this suspected tornado would have been located. At this point, Barb found some quarter sized hailstones on the side of the highway, apparently from the hail shaft we had just seen. Additional funnels developed along the southeast side of the storm as we continued into Belleville, and additional wall clouds were put down by the storm, which showed a cyclic life of development, then receding, then developing again.

We continued into Belleville, where the tornado sirens were sounding. We positioned ourselves alongside US81 north of Hwy 36 along the western edge of Belleville to observe the back end of the storm cross Belleville. Several wall clouds developed, with intense rotation, and a number of funnel clouds dropped, with one or two possibly brief touchdowns to the west and northwest of Belleville. While sitting alongside the road, we clocked winds at 86MPH, 100MPH, and then 114MPH, then the winds suddenly died to zero, and the quickly rotating clouds around us made an eerie sight with no surface wind. Some of the larger funnels pulled smaller areas of rotation into themselves, and we expected to see a large tornado form, but the storm did not seem to be able to produce enough spin from the back side to sustain a good tornado.

We then continued north on US81 to a few miles north of Belleville, but it became obvious that the best vantage point would be from Hwy 36 to the south of Belleville, so we turned around. Winds along this portion of US81 were heavy, and a semi truck ahead of us heading back into Belleville rocked side to side and appeared to almost tip over due to the crosswind. We headed east on Hwy 36, and observed some tree damage in Belleville, along with the parking lot area of a Caseys’ General Store that had trash cans and other loose items blown around. In the Casey’s, we met up with two chasers from Extreme Winds whose van had become stuck and was covered with mud. They were using windshield scrapers to get enough mud off to be able to see out the windows and continue the chase. We gave them a couple of towels and moved on.

We traveled east on Hwy 36 out of Belleville, and observed the storm paralleling us to the north. Beautiful wall clouds and a number of funnels were observed, and the southern “spaceship” edge of the supercell was in view. Just east of Cuba, KS, some beautiful mammatus clouds were seen to the south of the storm. We continued to parallel the storm along Hwy 36, then traveled north on KS Hwy 15 toward the Nebraska state line. Severe TStorm warnings continued for this storm into Nebraska, but daylight faded out and we decided to end the chase for the day and continue on Sunday. We traveled through Beatrice, NE into Lincoln, NE where we spent the night.