April 24th, 2007 Central KS Tornadoes April 24th, 2007 Central KS (Nickerson Tornadoes)

I chased with Ryan Jarratt and David Haas on the Reno County storm. We flew north out of Norman after most of OK's potential was being wiped out by that early mess. We drove to Blackwell, OK for some lunch and decide to head west to see some sunny skies and to check out Wakita, OK. As the dryline intensified to our NW, we drifted gradually NW till we got about 10 miles from the end of the line. I was not expecting much from any of this as it looked like it was going into a line as well. We advanced closer to core punch it a few times so the day was not a complete waste. As we approached the storm from the south, a clear slot had begun to form and a ragged looking funnel came out. After seeing some potential in this storm we decided to stay as close as possible. I wanted to be able to see the rotation, did we ever.

Saw atleast 3 funnels before confirming a touchdown, we were about a mile out so they could have touched down too. We moved into and stayed in the clear slot for the next 20 minutes. First touchdown was about a quatermile down the road. Went through some trees and powerlines and did no obvious damage to anything. It moved east into a field so we drove in behind and got video from a couple hundred yards at most as it stirred up the field. It took a couple more miles and good driving to keep from hitting people who like to park in the middle of a paved road (a picture will come later of this news media vehicle, he just about got rammed by the car in front of me). We repositioned down another dirt road and watch a new debris cloud go through another grove of trees and a maybe a house.

The main area of circulation had moved well to our east we believed as we drove down the road that had just been hit. We were driving behind a small pickup as we apprached an intersection, when an area of circulation began to bounced down the road maybe 50-100 yards in front of us right through a pickup and a car. After it passed we made it to the intersection and went east. As we went east we saw the debris get kick back up off the field less than 50 yards to the north of us as we moved east and entered another area of trees.

At every house we seemed to pass, the residents were outside with cameras, even the ones it just went directly overhead. We stopped and talk to some of them as we watch the numerous funnels. Stopped and talked to one guy who was taking pictures as the funnel had just passed directly over his house. He said he use to chase back in the day and would have had his camcorder out if had not just got home.

Didnt have to many issues even with the large number of chasers who showed up after this thing got going. Biggest problems came from news media and some locals who liked to stop in the road, but i dont hold anything against locals who might be a little freak out with this going over their home. I couldnt have imagined how bad this would have been if this wasnt KS with its large number of road options that kinda kept every one spread out.

Not the most impressive storm, but it definitely tops some other days on my list.

Here are a couple pics (look at the area to the right of the truck, objects in the air):




You can not park like this unless you are law enforcement or EOC, this vehicle is neither.




Here is the video: