Curses, foiled again!

Sunday June 3rd looked promising to the Hokie Stormchasers as the forecast models, several NWS forecast offices, and the Storm Prediction Center all pointed to a significant potential for supercells and some tornadoes in the eastern Kansas / Oklahoma region.  So, from Guymon OK we pointed our chase vans eastward and trekked up into south central Kansas on the way to a target near Wichita.  Unfortunately as we drove the situation visually didn't lend itself to confidence in that forecast.  Mid-day storms were dropping rain, spreading cloudiness, and generally messing up the convective potential for severe storms later in the afternoon.

So, from Pratt KS (favorite chase target of yours truly) we rerouted southward into northwestern Oklahoma to see if the dryline would fire storms.  It did, but we were again halfway between convection centers and wound up at 8:00 pm on a low-precipitation supercell in the far eastern OK panhandle, watching it completely die before our eyes.  That storm, by the way, was less than 2 hours from Guymon where we'd started out, and we had left our hotel at 8:00 am that morning.

To add insult to injury we first started to book hotel rooms east of Oklahoma City near I-40 but bagged that idea when a large area of supercells chugged in that direction, kicking out softball-sized hail.  Then, we booked hotel rooms in northeastern Oklahoma and motored in that direction, only to have an area of severe storms - including hail and flooding rains - set up over that region and blocked our path.  Literally in mid-trip we cancelled those rooms and headed north on I-35 toward Wichita, feverishly searching for rooms there.  We found some and arrived in Park City KS at 2:15 am after watching an awesome supercell backlit by lightning to the east of the interstate.  Needless to say I haven't had time to process any photos from yesterday but I will attempt to post some over at the Virginia Stormchasing FB page later today.