5-22-08 CHASE SUMMARY

I left on the 21st with Jay McCoy and Jeff Bernard for the target city of Garden City, KS. We arrived in Garden City hoping to get a room at the Comfort Inn. Unknown to us, some insurance adjusters were in town and 90% of the rooms in town were taken. We did find one motel that had rooms available, but it was one of those iffy ones if you know what I mean. We decided to get a good room in Dodge City. Besides Dodge City wasn't that far away. We called ahead and got rooms at the Comfort Inn. I would recommend this place to any chaser who wants a great room with lots of amenities. As a matter of fact, I will stay there from now on when I'm in town.

Now on to the chase. I'm going to keep it relatively short and simple. We got up and ate the free breakfast and looked over data. We really didn't think we needed to go anywhere since Dodge City sat in the prime area for severe weather. We were watching tv and saw the wedge in Colorado and thought, wow, what a start to the day! We began seeing towers to the west near Garden City, so we took off. We went west a few miles to get a closer glimpse and to top off our tanks. We initially was going after a storm to our north but it was moving way too fast.

We then noticed storms firing to the south and went after those. I believe we went a mile or two south out of Ingalls to view the storms. Ingalls is basically halfway between Garden City and Dodge City. We noticed a base to the south as the storm moved north. It got better organized and we went back to Hwy 50 and took a dirt road to the north to get a better view. We looked at the base to our SW and it became very well organized. Scud then rose into the updraft and a wall cloud formed. This wall cloud was fairly persistent and lasted for about 30 minutes or more. We followed it north and the storm finally formed a funnel near Kalvesta. I called it in to the Dodge City NWS and a tornado warning soon followed. We followed the storm a little further until it finally collapsed.

Jay and Jeff kept going north but I held back as I saw new convection forming to the south. I intercepted another storm near Jetmore, but it wasn't anything to write home about. No, I didn't see any tornadoes, but for me, that's not what it's about. As I always say, tornadoes are the icing on the cake. Here are some photos from the day.

PHOTO #1 WELL DEVELOPED WALL CLOUD LOOKING SW NEAR INGALLS, KS
PHOTO #2 SAME AS ABOVE, ONLY A FEW MINUTES LATER
PHOTO #3 RAYS OF SUNLIGHT SHINE THROUGH STORM NEAR KALVESTA, KS