April 13, 2026
Target: Ottawa, Kansas
Left Kansas City in the early evening with the intent to move down I-35 toward Ottawa as a developing supercell moved northeastward toward that location. The storm moved right just north of I-35, and moved toward Pomona, Kansas. Here, it produced a brief tornado near Quenemo, Kansas. As the storm moved westward along HWY 68 it produced a longer-lived tornado just west of Ottawa, Kansas, where it did EF-2 damage to the south side of the city. Along HWY 68, the storm produced another EF-2 tornado just west of Hillsdale, Kansas, which did damage to several structures in town. As I drove eastward along HWY 68 I saw numerous power flashes in the dark as the tornado went through Hillsdale. We ended the chase near Louisburg, Kansas, as it lost it’s supercell characteristics.
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Brief truncated tornado just west of Quenemo, Kansas.
April 23, 2026
Target: Cassoday, Kansas
We started the day at the Cassoday exit along I-35 as storms initiated to our southeast. As the initial storms formed and moved northeast, we moved up to Cottonwood Falls, Kansas. Despite that storm showing some promise, due to highway closure, we dropped back down to Cassoday (this storm eventually went on to produce a tornado near Emporia, Kansas. As we got closer to our originaal target area of Cassoday, we noticed rising dust about 25-30 miles to our west. Believing it to be a developing landspout we pushed west through Cassoday, toward Newton, Kansas. While the landspout did last approximately ten minutes, we did not get close enough to see any motion in the landspout. Shortly after that one dissipated, two more landspouts appeared, simultaneously, to our southwest. Once they dissipated, we ended the day in Wichita, Kansas, watching structure behind the storm.
Landspout formed near Newton, Kansas
May 17, 2026
Target: Hoisington, Kansas
In a day when we were looking exclusively for landspouts, we positioned just north of Hoisington, Kansas along Highway 281. The first landspout was a well formed landspout just west of Highway 281, about five miles north of Hoisington. This landspout had a well formed tube stretching to the bottom of the new developing thunderstorm overhead. It crossed Highway 281, just ahead of us, forming several sub-vortices in the field next to us. We follwed it northeast approximately seven miles to Susank, when we lost track of the circulation. We returned to the spawning area of the landspout, near Hoisington, but no other landspouts formed.
Landspout near Hoisington, Kansas