June 26th on paper didn’t have a lot going for it.  We fully expected high based storms to form along a slowly advancing cold front over northern Kansas and southern Nebraska.  Early afternoon storms formed in south central Nebraska, but we decided to wait till later and chase in the area where the best parameters were, over northwest and west central Kansas. The wait was well worth it! One storm formed northeast of Colby, Kansas and became severe. Structure was decent and hail large.  Soon another 2 storms formed west of it along the same boundary. The lead storm left an outflow boundary that the second storm injested.  The air, full of moisture and helicity caused the updraft of the second storm to spin, soon becoming tornado warned near Oakley, Kansas. We intercepted it there and stayed in front of it all the way south of Scott City, Kansas where it moved south of the instability axis and weakened. The storm had top notch structure, was tornado warned its entire life cycle and also produced hail the size of softballs. An amazing and unexpected treat to watch this thing on the first day of the Reunion Tour for hours!

2017, funnel, hail, June, June 2017, Kansas, lightning, rotation, supercell, tornado, twister