AJ vs. The Weather, 2022 Edition (a.k.a. Something Borrowed, Something New... Or Something Like That)

It's been quite an interesting -- and at times wild -- year of weather experiences for me. 

I'll start with a storm chase story. My sister, chase partner and I successfully followed tornado-warned storms back in April. The coveted "Saturday setup" looked ripe for storms over my backyard (eastern Kansas) on April 29, so I made plans to meet my little sis Lindy at her apartment in Emporia early in the afternoon. Chase partner Mira drove up from Joplin and joined us just in time for a tornado watch to be issued and storms to start firing further west near Herington.

We hopped in Mira's tiny Honda Fit and headed west on Highway 50 into Chase County. The little blue hatchback is actually a solid chase vehicle; its small size guarantees that you don't get too close for fear of being tossed like a used tissue. We're not the type of chasers that desire getting right underneath the darn thing, we just want a good angle to safely view it and leave if it starts to swing our way.

After waiting about 30 minutes for a pilot vehicle to come lead us through the above construction stop along Highway 50 at Strong City (something we didn't expect but thankfully had time to wait for), we blasted west and swung north along K-77 to intercept some quickly-developing cells. There were a ton of other chasers on the road with us, as is the norm nowadays, so we were extra attentive to the sides of the road for folks parked a bit haphazardly.

At one point we turned around and headed back south on 77. The skies grew darker and the day grew later. Mira drove and monitored the radar on her phone mounted to the dash. I scanned the clouds ahead and kept my camera ready. My sister Lindy was in the backseat and spied the gray fang dangling from a huge misty maw swirling above. 

She alerted us to the funnel and I snapped a couple photos as Mira found a place to safely pull the car off the road. We found a driveway entrance and stopped about a mile and a half away from the storm to watch it as it moved northeast. Rotation was evident and brisk as the funnel stretched and morphed, but we couldn't see the bottom. A rural property and a parked freight train blocked our view of the horizon. What we saw was indeed a tornado, though. Other chasers on the opposite side of it along K-4 observed a debris cloud on the ground. The tornado's life was short, dissipating within a couple minutes.

A man in a red Mercedes-Benz coupe pulled up while we were watching this cone hang out for a moment. I can't remember what he asked us exactly, but he was somehow unaware of the tornado. We told him there was a tornado-warned storm close and that if he kept going south, he'd be fine. He said he was from Utah and that he'd never dealt with a tornado warning before. I recommended he listen to local radio for updates, he thanked us for the info and left. Then the storm began recycling and we left the driveway for another angle further north again.

We found a great spot along K-77 and Highway 209 east of Woodbine to employ my favorite storm chasing tactic: hang out and let the storm come to us. And boy, did it show up in style.

After getting lots of photos of this "mothership" supercell thunderstorm, the environment began to get messier. More people were streaming south to intercept newer storms firing, but we hung on to this northern cell for quite a while. We even caught another weak tornado that formed to our south while keeping an eye northward. Unbeknownst to us, another tornado that we couldn't see impacted northern portions of Morris County, causing damage to outbuildings and rural homes. Nobody was hurt.

Eventually we hopped back in the car and drove north toward Junction City. Another storm went tornado-warned south of us but was tracking north-northeast at a faster pace than we could intercept it. With heavier rain falling and daylight fading, we decided to turn around and go back to Junction City for safety. A wall cloud followed us across I-70 and the storm dumped rain and small hail on the gas station we parked at. As the storms moved east they weakened and turned into a messy blob. Mira had to get back to Joplin that night and we all wanted to sleep in our own beds, so we called it a chase and headed home. Sadly, three Oklahoma State students who were out chasing were killed in a crash while driving home, and Andover was struck by a tornado that severely damaged several homes and businesses. It would ultimately be rated an EF-3, with estimated maximum wind speeds of 155 miles per hour.

The NWS Wichita office has a great recap of all the tornadoes on April 29 here.

The month of May wasn't as memorable weather-wise, but I was busy trying to adjust to a job in Council Grove, so my attention was diverted. It did bring about the creation of something fun, though. I started writing a weather column for the publication I worked for, called "Flint Hills Atmospheres." It began as a way to tell Flint Hills weather stories from each season once weekly ahead of the Symphony in the Flint Hills event. This annual shindig involves bringing the Kansas City Symphony out to a pasture somewhere in the Flint Hills to perform an evening's worth of music after people sweat for a full day during the event's other activities.

Each year's Symphony in the Flint Hills signature event has a theme. This year, the theme was "Weather in the Flint Hills." 

The irony was written in the clouds.

I got to go to the June 11 event as a member of the press and do my usual "roam around and talk to people" thing. It was going to be a simple and fun assignment. The day was hot, around 90 degrees, and the air was juicy but the wind was blowing. There was a risk for storms later in the day, and the thought had occurred to me that, "Wouldn't it be funny if an event dedicated to the area's weather had to be cancelled because of the area's weather?"

Well, if you're Kansas in June, you give in to irony. A severe storm swiftly impacted Junction City and Manhattan late in the afternoon, spawning a brief tiny tornado that damaged a few homes near K-State. The storm then swung south and practically made a beeline for the Symphony in the Flint Hills. 

Indeed, an event dedicated to the area's weather was cancelled early because of, well, yeah, you get it.

My buddy Marcia and I were enjoying the music and watching the cattle being herded along the lush green hillside behind the stage tent. Then my phone buzzed with a K-State alert for a tornado warning, and a second time for a follow-up warning. Some conversations were taking place on the ground near the stage, and Marcia wondered aloud if our show was coming to a sudden end. 

She was correct. The concert's emcee, Dave Kendall, announced that Mother Nature had decided not to cooperate and therefore the show was cancelled. Some 5,000 people then evacuated by hiking across the Flint Hills more than a mile back to the parking area. 

The mass exodus from the Symphony in the Flint Hills. 

We had an hour to get to our vehicles before the storm got close, and I was able to make it to my car in plenty of time. Some folks hopped in their vehicles and immediately left, clogging the only road out of the pasture, and that didn't sound appealing to me. 

I opted to wait and, once again, let the storm come to me. As it approached, it put on a heck of a show.

It's pretty freaky to be stuck in a parking area with thousands of other people while a storm approaches. This big shelf cloud rolled overhead, the sky darkened, and rain and hail whipped through the parked cars. The storm even got tornado-warned just a mile to the east of where everyone was parked, and I hoped out loud that nobody would get rolled. High winds bucked my old car around as I sat out the storm, trying to update social media with poor signal and a draining phone battery.

Thankfully the storm passed with no injuries or major damage. I was able to finally leave and get home before midnight that night. The next day, it was hard to believe that I had sat through such an intense storm. Writing 1,000 words about it for the paper helped put things into perspective and solidified it all in my mind. I'll never forget that storm.

As of right now, Kansas is in the middle of a prolonged drought, and as we get closer to winter I'm thinking more about the Greensburg tornado from 2007. I've begun working on a book project with my cousin about that tornado and how the town is fairing 20 years later. It'll be comprehensive, and I'll share more about that project later. 

See you under the storm!

:)