Western Kansas
A few cities include: Dodge City, Goodland and Scott City.
Local tornado season: Peaks between May and mid-June.
Terrain: Relatively flat with a few hills and rivers.
Road network: Solid grid layout, only a few gaps.
Radar coverage: Good overall, limited in some areas.
Western Kansas may be the most quintessential chase real estate in the country. Arguably the best place to storm chase in Kansas, western Kansas is where storms often begin. Whether it’s a sharpening dryline or a low pressure system pushing off of the Front Range, it all comes together many times each spring in western Kansas.
Tornadoes are common in western Kansas during the spring. They are often slow-moving and can be rather photogenic. In addition to tornadoes, large to very large hail is also common, particularly with maturing supercells in the area. On hot summer days, outflow dominant storms can produce an occasional dust storm in western Kansas.
Terrain
The terrain of western Kansas is mostly flat, but as is the case across the High Plains, the elevation gradually increases as one moves west. Several rivers cut through northwestern Kansas, along with the Smoky Hills; although these features are generally not large enough to be major obstacles while storm chasing. West-central and southwestern Kansas have even less terrain variation and the vast majority of the land is open plains.
Road network
While one cannot claim that the road network is perfect in western Kansas, it’s about as good as it gets anywhere in the Plains. The entire area is comprised of a fairly consistent grid road network. Paved state and U.S. highways cross through all counties and most follow relatively straight routes. The gridding of dirt and occasionally paved roads between the primary roads allows a storm chaser to get as close as desired to a storm, assuming secondary roads are not flooded.
Some of the primary roadways in southwestern Kansas begin to slope off in a northeast to southwest curve toward the Oklahoma panhandle. This can save time when commuting and the road layout around these roads generally remains set up like a grid.
Radar coverage
Most of western Kansas has reasonable radar coverage, but there are some areas where coverage is a bit limited. Around the Smoky hills, near and north of I-70, one may find themselves stuck between multiple radars. KGLD covers northwestern Kansas, while KUEX in south-central Nebraska shows some range into the area and KDDC predominantly covers southwestern Kansas. With that said, although radars may not have lower level data in all areas, radar data will not completely drop out.
The far southwestern corner of Kansas begins to stretch the limits of KDDC. It can be difficult to track storms on radar if they are moving toward southwestern Kansas, as a sizable radar hole exists in southeastern Colorado. Once storms move into southwestern Kansas from the west, they quickly move into range of KDDC.
In summary, western Kansas is one of the best areas to storm chase in tornado alley. In addition to frequently producing tornadoes during prime storm chase season, the road network is very good, the terrain is mostly open plains and radar coverage is favorable in most areas.