Milan, Kansas Funnel

Today was a really good chase by late winter standards. I traveled from Wichita to the Kansas/Oklahoma border (south of Medicine Lodge). A storm was already in progress in northwest Oklahoma moving towards Kansas. It had been tornado warned and dropped softball sized hail in the town of Buffalo, OK. I documented hail that covered the ground over Barber County, Kansas. The hailstones were around the size of nickels, with a few near the size of quarters. It was hard to keep up with the storm with all the hail on the highway. It was almost as bad as driving on a sheet of ice. I had to slow down quite a bit just to keep my vehicle from sliding around. I finally caught back up with the leading edge of the storm in southern Sumner County, just southwest of Wellington, where I filmed a dissipating funnel cloud south of Milan, KS. A tornado was reported to the north of my location just minutes before I watched this area of rotation die off as it rapidly pushed south by cold outflow. I am almost certain that this was the same area of rotation that produced the brief rope tornado near Milan. The tornado had to have been hit by strong outflow winds, pushing the rotation south, and cutting it off from the storm. As the storm pushed east, strong straight line winds did some pretty extensive damage around the Udall area. It was a great early season chase for me, I just wish I could have been in position to see the brief tornado that formed.