Day 4 - still Kansas, Dorothy

Travelled about 600 km from Garden City KS to Wichita KS - the long way!
After analysis of the models projected for 00Z (printed before the current data were available, the surface analysis suggested somewhat different regions of tornado potential. So instead of heading to areas like the west Texas panhandle or eastern Oklahoma, we were going to intercept potential initiation in north-central Kansas; we were going to have a short-distance day. We went east to Hutchinson, where temperature was 34C with a dew point of 24C. It felt like you could melt on that sidewalk! A late lunch was planned to give us flexibility about the need to find  dinner when storms would be picking up. On radar there was very little except a north-south line forming with slightly higher but still low-level water density in a fuzz of green echoes. A BBQ lunch of very tasty, crisp-on-the-outside ribs, topped off with a well-shared sour cherry cobbler was delicious as well as substantial. 
We drove north to I-135 and up toward Salina noticing growing towers of altocumulus on the west and thickening haze; on radar now, there was a small, interesting cell starting to hint at rotation amidst other developing storms. Even while finding a useful road to avoid the airport and a National Guard artillery range, the cell of interest faded almost completely and two to the west were merging along the outflows from other cells. It was neat to see how one storm had an elliptical shape that was flattened on the southern aspect, which we thought was at the gradient in the charts of both CAPE and helicity, just outside the CAP. So we drove a bit west to a gas station parking area, a took a bit of time-lapse to follow the rotation of the circumference of a wall cloud, low beneath the LCL. We moved about 1/2 km to a vista without wires or trees in the way of a view, and the colour of the low sky was a greenish-purple-grey. There was lightning close by, and a lowering part of the wall when suddenly lightning struck just down the road to the south, maybe a kilometre away, almost immediately followed by loud thunder. A “mite” too dangerous for comfort! We pulled up tripods fast, and high-tailed it out of there onto a different road, driving only a few kilometres to another roadside, donning rain jackets, to watch the same wall cloud continue rotating. But it was rising and needed to cycle back (or not) so we loaded up again to intercept the next cell. Now we were going down country roads with nice residential properties but trees along the roadside and back along property lines and streams, so visibility wasn't that great. At one point there were two lighter grey projections from a very dark cloud base that were tantalizingly tornado-like, but alas were not. Then we headed to the southeast slightly, where it seemed possible to see most daylight illuminating the low-level sky, and the three experts conferred on our next destination. Then we drove south to intercept a new storm developing west of Lindsborg, but it was reported to be dumping softball-sized hail. We filled up with gas and snacks, ice-cream sandwiches, and oreo cookies. Then not seeing anywhere with tornado potential, it was decided we should have a bit of a hail experience. This time we got into a downpour and the hail started just as visibility dropped seriously; it was no time to risk the hit of baseballs, so we backtracked and waited under the canopy of our earlier gas station, for the heaviest rain to pass. By then the system seemed to have degraded, and although there were a lot of high echoes on radar, none had particular prospects for developing a tornado. 
On the way south on I-135 into Wichita, there was quite a display of lightning to the east and then to the south as we drove between and sometimes through storm cells dumping heavy rain. One bolt came out of a dark sky of heavy cloud down to the ground in a wide spike, then seemed to go back up, only to return to the ground again and again, along the same track. It essentially pulsed up and down in brilliant staccato. With all the rain and Saturday evening distractions, not to mention lightning and wind gusts, drivers were again showing their mettle. 
Arriving at the hotel in the city centre, the rain and thunder really let loose! We spent an hour just outside the doors, under the canopy, enjoying the downbursts of pouring rain, waves of it in strong wind. Some were catching reflections of the plaza, complete with  lightning bolts down into the shopping area just across the wide road. After checking in, everyone went out for a late dinner at a taproom and R&R of discussions, weather-related and not; the class is now a group! One of the students of a former storm-chase course joined the group, and updated the instructors. She'd interviewed with Accuweather, and they'd been surprised at her level of knowledge and storm-chase experience; she's one of the only Canadians to be working there! Kudos to GEOG 4670! I'd echo that the course has shown us all a part of life that we were curious, fascinated or excited to learn for one reason or another, and the best part is that we can learn enough to make a reasonable prediction and then keep learning along the way by checking the surface and upper air charts, models, radar, and mesoscale discussions. It's a whole different set of parameters to consider in life, with a vocabulary new to many of us. And that brings future prospects of new analogies and puns, as well as a bigger-picture view of weather itself, and a much finer-scale perspective on severe weather. I will be interested to see how I approach thinking about severe winter weather, later in the year, too, as there must be some prognostic similarities across the seasons. Gives food for thought on how meteorologists must be hard-pressed to update models in a time of very southerly jet-stream flows as we're seeing this year, together with climate changes and ongoing severe weather this far south. No wonder, models are challenged.
It was a late night ended in some fun as we overnighted in Wichita. Judy Anderson