April 28, 2025 (Click on images to enlarge them)
The active early storm season has continued for my son Ryan and I as we drove out on a storm adventure for a fifth time this year. Our friend Tom Stolze joined us on our trip. The Storm Prediction Center put out a Moderate Risk with a 10% hatched area for Tornadoes. Although the higher risk was to the north, we chose to make our target in the Enhanced Risk in the area around Northwest Missouri.
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Our target city was to get near St. Joseph, Missouri and then watch to see how things would evolve. We stopped for lunch in Chilicothe, Missouri and looked over the models/data again to try figuring out the ideal target. Our conclusion was to continue on the current plan. As we got to St. Joseph, storms were beginning to fire further west than we had expected near Salina, Kansas, so we decided to continue driving into Kansas and went as far as Fairview, Kansas to plant ourselves out in front of the developing storms. We chose to stay well in front of these storms, but within range so we could intercept in the event these storms turned Tornadic. The storms quickly became severe warned.
As the storms worked their way toward us, they showed no sign of rotation. We worked our way south to stay out ahead of the approaching storms and get a better look at the south side of the storm, but the storms showed no interest in becoming Tornadic.
We worked our way back to the east and into Missouri staying just ahead of the storm. We continued to hold out hope for a spin up, but rotation was not in the offing today.
As the sun set, we took one last look at the storm before heading home. We saw the last remaining daylight vanish as the rain core advanced to the east covering up the last remaining glow.
It was a very disappointing day weather wise. The anticipation for Tornadic Supercells was high, but the entire Storm System underachieved in the forecasted potential. We never put ourselves in a position to get any of the severe hail or wind the Storms produced as we spent the entire trip in front of the cells. We only managed to get a few drops of rain on our windshield a couple of times during our entire trip. It is always a pleasure to have Tom Stolze join us on a Storm adventure as he blends well with our personalities and makes things fun.
| Our Trip |
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15.5 Hours - 740
Miles
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Summary 2025 Page |
Storm Index Page |