Photos here.

After a day or two of uncertainty regarding a target, I made a tentative decision to play the dryline in northern Oklahoma and south-central Kansas, near the best upper level winds and away from the traffic of Oklahoma City. Eric Nguyen suggested he liked south-central Kansas as well, so I woke up early in the morning and drove to Norman, meeting him, Scott Currens, and Dave Fick around 10:00 AM. We hit the road soon after in two vehicles - Eric and Scott in one, Dave and I in the other. Our general target was Pratt, KS, later adjusted eastward to Kingman as we made our way north.

Upon arriving in Kingman, we saw that a storm had already developed near Elk City, OK - the first of the day. Another storm was developing to the north near Concordia, KS, and cumulus was bubbling along the dryline to our immediate west and southwest. After gassing up and grabbing a quick bite to eat, we dropped south to near Rago to watch and wait. Both the Elk City and Concordia storms continued to intensify, and a new storm began organizing near Woodward, OK. Meanwhile, towering cumulus struggled to our west, near Pratt and Medicine Lodge, KS. It definitely didn't look like an outbreak day - not in our area, at least.

Eventually, a small storm developed west of Medicine Lodge, and we gave chase. As we approached our storm, we found it to be high-based and relatively unimpressive - dwarfed by the Woodward storm to its southwest. Farther south, the Elk City storm had gone tornadic, tempting us to abandon Kansas and head for Oklahoma. However, the Woodward storm was gradually looking better, and with a northeast motion at the time, a quick intercept was possible. So, we opted to drop south to Hardtner, right on the state line, brushing the storm's front flank precip, emerging to find the updraft region northwest of Alva, OK. The storm was rotating hard, attempting to produce a wall cloud despite it's high base. The updraft and core were very well separated, and the storm looked healthy. We sat and watched for awhile, the storm spitting occasional quarter-size hail upon us.

As the storm continued northeast, we backtracked across the state line to Hardtner and continued east to Kiowa, flanking the hail core and staying ahead of the updraft. At Kiowa, we paused to top off our gas tanks and watch the storm slowly approach. By this time, it was no longer making attempts to produce a wall cloud. Strong storm-scale rotation was still evident, but the base was far too high for anything of interest to happen at the surface. In the grand scheme of things, the storm was obviously a beast, but underneath the updraft, all was peaceful. With the old Elk City storm going nuts to our south, we were feeling rather dejected.

It was becoming clear that the storm at least had incredible structure, so we continued northeast past Hazelton and to a point roughly 10 miles west of Anthony on Hwy. 2 to set up and shoot stills. Sure enough, the storm had a large bell shaped updraft and impressive overall structure. Furthermore, our surface dewpoints were increasing; the storm was getting into better air. With time, the base began to lower somewhat as the storm interacted with better, deeper moisture. Wall cloud formation commenced shortly thereafter.

Given the storm's slow forward speed, we sat in the same spot for quite some time, shooting stills and time lapse. As the updraft finally came within a few miles of our location, the storm's character suddenly changed. Rapid rotation and RFD development were observed, the first good wall cloud of the day forming. Within minutes, a funnel formed and inflow increased markedly - as if someone had flipped a switch.

The funnel continued to tighten and condense toward the surface, giving us our first tornado of the day a few miles southeast of Attica. We blasted north on dirt roads to get a better view, stopping to watch the perfect elephant trunk slowly drift north across open farmland at close distance. The motion at the surface was fairly violent, reminiscent of the Pampa, TX tornado of June 8, 1995. However, with the tornado far removed from the core of the storm, bathed in sunlight, it appeared rather benign. Eventually, filtered sunlight illuminated the lower third of the funnel, giving it an orange appearance, everything above a shimmering silver. It was the most beautiful tornado I had ever seen.

The tornado continued northward, keeping its form, lofting and wrapping itself in brown dirt as it crossed roads. We too continued north on a network of dirt roads east of Attica, eventually finding ourselves in the damage path north of Hwy. 160. The tornado had persisted for over 10 minutes by then, still moving away from us. We were on a muddy road, blocked by downed powerlines, stuck in a small traffic jam of chasers, locals, and law enforcement in the middle of nowhere. After a few minutes, the tornado began roping out to our north. Meanwhile, more action was imminent to our east...

By this point, Dave and I had become separated from Eric and Scott, and since we weren't running GPS at the time, we were a little unsure of our location. Worse yet, we didn't have a good Kansas map, relying instead on a poorly detailed road atlas for navigation. We made a quick calculation of our location and decided our best option was to continue north and east on the local grid of dirt roads until we reached pavement.

During this time, we missed the Freeport tornado and the beginning of the Argonia wedge, stuck behind the storm. We eventually found pavement just north of Harper, jumping on Hwy. 160 and continuing east in an attempt to get back in front of the storm. By this time, we were hearing ominous reports of the wedge approaching Argonia - directly ahead of our location. As we came into heavy precip near Danville, we wondered just what we were driving into.

Thankfully, the tornado beat us across the road, and we emerged from the hook precip to catch glimpse of the wedge as it dissipated north of Argonia. Our attention immediately shifted to a new area of intense rotation to our immediate northeast, however. As we followed along on Hwy. 160, strong RFD winds of 60-70 mph slammed us from the northwest, lofting debris in the air, dust and dirt screaming across the road from left to right. Fearing we were a little too close for comfort, Dave gunned the engine, and we blasted east as fast as the car would allow. Along the way, we hit a sudden wind shift, dust and dirt now screaming across the road from right to left into the wall cloud over our shoulder to the north. Inflow!

Once we felt safe, we pulled over just north of Milan to take a look. The wall cloud was exhibiting intense rotation, moving north toward Conway Springs. Our view of the surface was blocked by trees, so we drifted east on Hwy. 160 to near Hwy. 49 until we found a good spot. Almost within seconds of stepping out of the car, a tornado developed under the wall cloud to our north - a large, black tube against a deep orange sky. The tornado persisted for some time before undergoing a period of reorganization, exhibiting multi-vortex characteristics as it morphed into a small wedge. Despite being 5 miles away, we had front row seats for the tornado as it seemingly churned in one spot south of Conway Springs. It was at this time the worst damage of the day (F3) occurred, about a mile south-southeast of the city.

As the tornado became increasingly wrapped in rain, we continued east and then north on dirt roads to get a better view. By then, light was fading rapidly, and contrast was becoming poor. We could see a white cone tornado to our immediate north, however. Originally, I thought this was a continuation of the earlier tornado, but upon reviewing video and NWS Wichita's damage survey, it turns out it was an entirely different tornado! In fact, in our video, the original Conway Springs tornado can be seen in the background to the north-northwest, the cone tornado much closer to our location. At the same time, a third, smaller tornado developed to the east of the cone tornado, essentially giving us three tornadoes at once. Furthermore, a small funnel developed at one point practically overhead, kicking up dust at the surface, perhaps giving us FOUR tornadoes at once, if only for a brief moment. It was indeed an incredible storm.

Darkness had pretty much fallen by that point, so we continued east on dirt roads until reaching Hwy. 81 north of Wellington. Given the lack of light and the storm's predelection for suddenly developing new circulations and tornadoes in unexpected locations, we decided to call it a chase and get out of the way. Oddly enough, the storm apparently didn't produce any more tornadoes past that point, continuing east-northeast toward the southern suburbs of Wichita.

We contacted Eric and Scott and made our way south to Wellington for a late dinner at Pizza Hut with other ecstatic chasers. The general consensus was that we had all had the chase of a lifetime.

And, indeed, it was the chase of a lifetime. Personally, it was my most successful chase as far as number of tornadoes is concerned, including the most beautiful tornado I had ever seen in the initial elephant trunk near Attica. It would have been nice to have caught the Argonia wedge, but by missing it, we were able to spend more time enjoying the Attica tornado until the very last drop. And, without GPS or even a decent Kansas map, I figure Dave and I did pretty well getting back in front of the storm in time to catch the Conway Springs tornadofest.

I've missed out on much of the 2004 season thus far, and it looks as if my chasing in June will be just as limited as May. But this particular day makes up for much of that. It's hard to top six long-lived tornadoes in one day.