April 08, 2015
After work on "Chase Eve", our friend Tom Zeitinger, my son Ryan, and I headed out to Overland Park, Kansas to meet up with our chase partner, Brian Stertz. Our plan was to stay the night at Brian's place and then head out to Southeast Kansas for storm initiation. Got out on the road early and headed for the target. As the day went on, the target kept being nudged westward. Finally, we made the decision in the late afternoon to head all the way out close to the dryline in southern Kansas / Northern Oklahoma. We chose the Alva, Oklahoma area as the target area. Storms were now firing on the warm front just inside the Kansas border to our north. We watched these storms as they were initially non-severe and showing little signs of low level rotation. With about an hour and a half of daylight left, we needed to make the decision to either stick with the storms to the north which were struggling and in an area of horrible road access or drop south about 60 miles on the dryline to better looking storms that were showing signs of rotation. We decided to head south. As we approached the storm south, we realized we had double the bad news. First, the storms to the north where we originally were began to produce tornadoes. Second, the storms we were coming up to had dissipated and were no longer even there when we go to them. That put us in a spot where there was nothing else to chase and forced us to call it a night with a long drive back to Overland Park, Kansas.
Sunset after a non-eventful day for us
Total Two Day Trip - 1621 miles
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