Outflow Dominance: May 9, 2018

Blowing dust beneath a thunderstorm.

Not every successful storm chase requires a tornado and sometimes the least impressive looking atmospheric setups produce some photogenic storms. Today’s storm chase featured very low confidence that anything impressive would form, as the environment in northwestern Kansas was lackluster, featuring dew-points in the 40s and fairly weak winds in the lower levels of the atmosphere. Even though the ingredients were not there for organized supercells, thunderstorms developed and did not disappoint, at least in terms of photo opportunities.

Western Kansas almost has a magical aura to it. Setting aside tornadoes, which I’ve seen plenty of in western Kansas, the number of photogenic storm chases I’ve had there is about as high as anywhere else that I can think of. Even in a marginal setup like today, I was able to grab a few solid photos, which rank among my favorites from 2018, so far, as simple as they might be.

An outflow-dominant thunderstorm over Brewster, KS with hail/rain shafts in the distance.

Outflow-dominant thunderstorms developed in far northwestern Kansas around mid-afternoon and slowly drifted off to the east-southeast. They produced some hail and lightning, but also kicked up plenty of dust from the relatively dry countryside. I spent about an hour near Brewster taking photos with different backdrops and called it a night well before sunset. Sometimes you pack up and go, in order to get ready for the next storm chase. I’m not one to stay with weak storms deep into the night, especially when I’ve already had some good photo opportunities and the storms are drifting farther and farther away from the next day’s storm chase target.

This year has been off to a slow start, but May generally finds a way to produce, especially in Kansas.

Rain and hail fall in the distance near I-70 in Brewster, KS.