Slow severe weather day on the Plains: Supercells fail to organize, heavy rain and lightning common: June 10, 2005

WOODWARD, OK - A marginal setup for thunderstorms on Friday, June 10 resulted in little severe weather activity in the Great Plains. Heavy rain and flooding were the primary concerns. The following is a log of the day's chase. Photos may be enlarged by clicking on the thumbnail image.

We started the day in Hays, Kansas and drove down to the Oklahoma panhandle, stopping in Meade, KS and Beaver, OK for data, where we ran into Erik Rasmussen and talked for a few minutes. We had three choices - storms near Liberal looked somewhat nice, a storm near Woodward that had no upstream storms to foul its inflow, and the southern end of the cluster along I-40 in Texas. None looked particularly appealing. Since we needed to get back to Hastings so Kurt could get his car, we chose the Woodward storm. Saw a few nice lightning strikes, lots of significant flooding, and a nice shelf cloud over the mesas east of Mooreland.

Digital photos:

It was a good thing that there wasn't much to see Friday, because it was 'National Farm Equipment Moving Day' or so it seemed. We managed to get behind a few long convoys of slow-moving trucks hauling massive farm machines. They were a huge pain to get around, requiring numerous leap-frog style passes over 10-15 miles to get by. We ended the day in Russell, Kansas, on the way to get Kurt and Nick to Hastings, Nebraska so they can continue on in Kurt's car.

NEXT EVENT: Lightning in northwestern Oklahoma

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