Tour Director's Field Report

Today was a play it by feel day that brought us to northwest Kansas.  We had strong wind shear, but limited moisture in Kansas with higher dewpoint, but a stronger cap located further south into Oklahoma.   We opted to chase in Kansas where the cap wasn't nearly as strong and where we could be sure that storms would develop, but of course with no certain guarantee to the quality of storms that would occur.   The day started with a few high-based supercells and eventually one of the storms became the dominant player.  The storm finally produced a tornado for us just at dusk and later went on to produce a larger tornado near Beloit well into the overnight hours.   The day was filled with excitement once our storm finally starting spinning hard and even after dark we stopped and photographed an incredible lightning show that went on for hours.