UK Storm Chasing - Tornado Alley (12-5-2004)

May 12th 2004 Click on any of the the Photos to Enlarge
About 9am we went back into town where we had met up with Tony, Sam & team last night. The reason we were sitting in the car park was just to get wireless access again. We did notice there van but there was no sign of life, guess they were injoying the good life, and that big breakfast in that big posh Motel. We got pissed off waiting, so we moved on to Garden city in Kansas which looked good for today (about 250 miles away).
Driving all the way down to Liberal, Kansas. This was a trip of 303 miles, just to get to where we wanted to start.
We then watched a textbook cell grow and develope.
There was rotation going on all around, at times it was hard to decided on which way to look Then Steve spotted a funnel over the trees, nice and white an think, alas it didn't come to anything more.
We continued to track the storm though Minneola and Pratt, Kansas. I've estimanted we where 15 mins too late for the tornado they reported at Pratt and there was a report and video of a Tornado in the following county of Harvey to our South too. Of coarse we where disapointed not to have seen it, but the build up to it is something nearly as good. As the sun set we headed for a Motel in Wichita, Kansas.
I guess mother nature must have felt sorry for us, as it treated us to a storm on the way.
After 559 miles we booked into the motel, it wasn't long after we rushed back outside to a small hail storm, small in comparision out here, but this stuff would have still hurt if it had hit you on the head.
Map of route (550 miles, total 2214)