Hello from Liberal, Kansas!

Today was a lackluster chase day, to say the least. The target was the Texas panhandle with the northern part having the better flow and dynamics. We started the day in Amarillo and drifted south toward Clarendon, Texas and waited. Two large supercells fired up down near north of Lubbock and they were tempting. The issue was all forecast models and surface obs were telling us to stick to our guns and stay with our northern target. Even some of the meteorology experts were saying to stick it out. We saw some towers going up on satellite and meandered our way back closer to Amarillo. We waited on a lone road for ... a couple of hours? And just watched ... and watched ... We watched two cells form, merge, the right split died and the left split continued on.

We headed north toward the surviving supercell but it quicly died off and the chase was done. There was quite a bit of action down on the southern storms. The first of two was spitting out landspouts. Then when the second one took over it quickly became wrapped in rain and dust and became an "earth-eater" supercell where it sucked up everything in its path. There were reports of a tornado though I don't know if anyone actually saw it. There was extensive damage reported along with haboobs and very strong winds.

We headed to Liberal, Kansas for the night, home of the Land of Oz tribute to the Wizard of Oz. This puts us in better position for tomorrow's target ... Perhaps in Colorado.

I added a few more photo galleries ... Check them out here: NEW PHOTOS

I also added new videos ... Check tem out here: NEW VIDEOS

May 18 tornado in Kansas: