Omaha Tornado Chaser: SE Nebraska/SW Iowa and lightning pics 5/31/09

This chase was pretty uneventful. I knew though before leaving that there probably wasn't going to be much so it wasn't a surprise. Morning clouds finally gave away to warm late spring sun and temps rose up into the 80's. However moisture was severely lacking as dewpoints in the morning started out in the upper 30s. they did a nice job of recovering but were still only in the lower to mid 50's by late afternoon. This really stunk because the winds were very favorable for rotating storms, but unfortunately the cloud bases were too high. There was even alot of doubt on whether storms would be able to fire through the warm mid levels of the atmosphere. I was at home, deciding to cancel chasing for the day when I noticed some cells popping south of lincoln. i watched them for a while before they suddenly grew pretty rapidly. i happened to look at my back patio and i could see a huge tower to my south. at this point it had been 3 weeks since i had been able to chase so i decided to go knowing this wouldn't be a very long chase. i headed south down I-29 and ran into the first major cell. i think i was just ahead of the main hail core though so i only experienced rain. the storm visually was pretty impressive especially from afar, but as i drove through it and seemed pretty unorganized and high based. i stopped just south of the cell, and pulled over to take some pics. the storm was looking better here from the south again. i took some pics of the precip shaft to my north and also a pretty good view of the smooth underside of the storm where the updraft was. i went east into iowa eventually ending up as far east and south as a town called riverton, ia in southwest iowa. it was getting close to sunset so i decided to start the hour drive home. once i got home, i was watching the news when the weather showed a line of storms that i believe were along the warm front that had just developed in the last 20 minutes. these storms were about 25-30 miles south of omaha on a west to east line. i looked at the back again and i could see the towers with the lightning flashing in them being also illuminated by the moon. i wasn't able to get any pics right away but went out and got some pics right before the moon was taken over by the growing storms. my battery ran out after about 15 minutes, so i had to quit for a while. the storms died down shortly after so i thought i was done for the evening. after about 45 minutes though, i looked out and noticed more lightning. i checked the radar once again and now a new line of storms were lined up east to west just south of omaha by about 10 miles this time. these were much closer so the lightning was better. i took pictures off and on for about 45 minutes. right before my battery was getting low again, the lightning really got intense. unfortunately i kept missing the big bolts expcept for the last pic i posted. i really love taking lightning pics(as you can probably see)!!