May 26 Chase

9:00 PM Update: Now filling up with gas in Stafford, KS and on our way back to Great Bend, KS where we began the day. Intercepted the storm to the east of Pratt, KS as it was tornado warned, however, not too much was observed with the storm going outflow dominant within a half hour of our arrival. Should get to Great Bend before 10 PM and get some supper there...

7:05 PM Update: The chase is already over for the day, dropping south from Great Bend ahead of a clump of thunderstorms until finally coming upon the tornadic warned storm near Greensburg, KS. The storm looked good at times, however once that occurred then the cell had to ingest another cell that was coming up from the south. After three or four cell mergers, the storm had finally had enough and went mainly outflow dominant. In the process of the chase, all four of the vehicles managed to run into golf ball sized and larger (2"+) hail. This managed to put cracks into 3 of the 4 vehicles windshields and dented all four. We'll review the HD video we had running in our dash to hopefully get a few vid-grabs of the hail. In the meantime, headed back to Great Bend, KS to spend the night and in-route to bust through a large line of... Actually now in-bound towards a tornado warned cell that also has tornado reported, so the chase is not quite over!

2:55 PM Update: Been watching the outflow for the past hour plus, it looks to have stalled out on a line from near Medford, OK through Great Bend, KS. Warm front just to the north, dryline well off to the west at this point which is only a small concern at this point. Current tornado watch has us fairly well centered in the middle of it currently...

1:25 PM Update: Sitting just outside of Larned, KS after eating at a local Pizza Hut in town. Now watching Tony Laubach taking some pictures of the local wildlife, cows and goats. After the morning discussion we were aiming more towards the KS/OK border, however now with the warm front positioned well north of the previous forecasts we are going to hold here. Outflow boundary to our east, moving west, may come into play later on this afternoon. Instability is amazing given the very warm and moist air that is present, hopefully the shear can also be realized with some backing winds. Some flat cumulus starting to develop, but feel that another hour or two should start to see the storms develop.