May 18-20, 2026: Kansas storms, the Big Well, a dinosaur and Cow’s day out

Sometimes storm chasing is more about travel than storm chasing. Though May 18 — after the extremely frustrating traffic jams of our tornado chase May 17 – did offer chasing.

Alethea Kontis, Jason Persoff and I targeted north-central Kansas. So did hundreds of other storm chasers. And as one storm popped up after another, we were again mired in traffic. The only time the chase was pleasurable was when we dropped off the paved roads and watched one rotating cell – which allegedly produced a tornado after we lost it when, again, we got stuck in traffic. I’m pretty sure three of the storms we chased produced tornadoes we didn’t see – almost entirely because of traffic!

I was ready to throw in the towel on storm chasing by the end of this day. I shot lots of video, but I’m not sure if any of it is worth posting.

We stopped for dinner at a yummy Asian place in Manhattan, Kansas, and let the storms roar over us. Small hail blasted my car just outside the window by our table. When the power went out in the restaurant, the kind staff still delivered our hot food, and we paid in cash on the way out after the worst of the storm had passed. We stopped and said hi to Bill Hark at a truck stop before hitting the road for our respective hotels.

The sky was eerily atmospheric, a kind of burnt orange layered with gray, as we traveled west, knowing our next chase was a couple of days away. We said farewell to Jason via ham radio, hoping we’d catch up with him again later, and continued to our hotel.

 

We allowed ourselves to be distracted multiple times as we meandered southwest the next day. I rescued a turtle outside of Kinsley, Kansas, aka “Midway USA” and the hometown of uber-talented singer-songwriter Freedy Johnston, where we stopped at a museum and got a few shots of the old train engine – the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe 3424.

Alethea had never seen Greensburg’s excellent Big Well Museum (only the gift shop!), so we made that our primary target for the day. The museum tells of the town’s history, including the EF5 tornado that devastated it in 2007. There are several artifacts, including the mangled tornado siren (with my old picture of the water tower and siren on the plaque). The top floor of the round part of the museum features 360 degrees of windows, with verbiage explaining locations old and new – those destroyed by the tornado and new green architecture built in its place.

The spiral staircase at the center of the space descends into the world’s largest hand-dug well, completed in 1888. It was a perfect venue for me to use the GoPro Max2 360 camera. Check out the video. It’s trippy! I love that Escher effect of seeing the top and bottom of the staircase at the same time. And I love the design of this museum, which echoes the tornado and the well and also hints at infinity and the possibilities of renewal.

 

From there, we drove through southwest Kansas, where great swaths of the prairie have been burned black by wildfires. We caught a few dust devils and eventually landed in Amarillo, because every chase trip requires a visit to the Big Texan Steak Ranch if at all possible.

Since the weather was clear, it seemed like a decent night to try to shoot stars at Cadillac Ranch, the beloved art installation on the west side of Amarillo. But the moon was bright, and what was once in the middle of nowhere is becoming surrounded by truck stops and development. (There’s a stargazing scene here in my novel Tornado Pinball – I think it was darker then!)

We figured we’d be targeting Colorado on May 21, so on May 20, we headed north, stopping by the Cimarron Heritage Center in Boise City, Oklahoma. It really felt like Dust Bowl country this year, given how crispy the grass was. Locals hanging out at the gas station were talking about the fires and their dead lawns. These Panhandle towns feel so marginal, as in on the margins, incredible survivors in the face of a brutal environment.

We shot some time-lapse video of Cimmie, the apatosaurus sculpture, with the clouds and headed north into Colorado.

With a whimsical photo stop in Campo, known forever as the symbol of a remote chance paying off big-time thanks to a legendary tornado that happened near there, we aimed for Lamar. A stretched-out storm there had us pausing for a few photos before checking in to the hotel.

I feel bad that we don’t give Cow enough air time, so since we were staying at the Historic Cow Palace – a renovated old hotel that abuts a giant barn space filled with a dining area, other amusements and living tropical plants, with the humidity to go with them – Cow had his own adventure. We also ran into Bill there, so we enjoyed dinner in the unusual venue.

 

I’d noticed a vintage theater downtown. I often try to get quick shots of these as we roll through small towns – there are wonderful old theaters in the Plains, and I’m a movie nut. I wanted to see if the neon was lit now that it was dark. Alethea and I headed out to see. The neon wasn’t on, but the marquee was lit, and the colors were atmospheric as they reflected in the wet street, thanks to the earlier rain.

I love storms, but I also love traveling through the Plains. Heck, I just love being on the road. There’s always something new to discover and experience.

Click on any image to see a larger photo and start a slide show.