The Setup
Low pressure was developing on the high plains, and a dryline was setting up over Kansas. This dryline was rather diffuse as the moisture on either side of it was rather limited. We were hoping for some supercells, but the moisture quality was not great, and shear was somewhat marginal, so our expectations weren't very high.
The Chase
We departed Liberal and headed northeast. Storms developed, more or less, in the middle of Kansas, but they were really high-based and never really developed any structure. We dropped south from Kinsley as storms developed over a large area to our south. One appeared to have a bit of lightning.
When we pulled up east of the storm, south of Kinsley, I noticed a couple smoke plumes on the horizon to our west. As the storm drew closer, and more cloud-to-ground lightning strikes occurred, more smoke plumes developed. We were watching the lightning ignition of grass-fires in real time!
We let the storm pass, and the chase turned into a grass fire chase because there were some active fires that we could see as we drove southward between Greensburg and Coldwater. We spent a little time photographing and taking video of an active fire, but we also made sure to stay out of the way of emergency responders, who were trying to put these fires out.
After we had had our fill of this, we decided to head southward to Kiowa, where we booked rooms at one of our favorite hotels. We ate dinner at a nice pizza place in Kiowa then returned to our hotel for the drive back to Oklahoma City to end the tour.
Wrap-up
The storms were not what we wanted, exactly. They were high-based and not much to look at, aside from the lightning, which was actually rather interesting. The fires made the day quite unique, and hopefully, they didn't cause too much damage. Kansas has certainly had some dry weather, and I hope they get some much-needed rain!