April 14, 2012
Many chasers put this date in their books. It was one of the few forecasts that predicted a moderate to high risk of severe weather as well as tornado outbreak for a large area of Oklahoma and Kansas up to 2 days prior. As an added bonus, April 14 fell on a Saturday, giving many weekend chasers the ability to catch some of the action!
Jumping in the truck with experienced storm chasers Gene and Barb Robertson, we started towards the Great Plains from St. Louis around 3am. Storm chaser friends Jake Thompson and Shae Cohan were also on this ride.
Our original target of central Nebraska turned out to be an early bust, but we still had time to get into position for central Kansas as the show was just getting started.
After making a fast dash south, we arrived around the city of Salina, KS and caught up with a storm cell with a history of producing tornadoes, including one that had peeled pavement off of the highway just before we got into position. We then were able to travel along-side of this storm for the most part, minus the occasional interstate closures by the police, and was able to see this storm regenerate 7 tornadoes before moving onward.
