5/24/10 Western Nebraska

Today was kindof a last minute chase. Originally, i wasn't going to head out bc the best chances of severe weather was up in western south dakota, but i had a buddy contact me who i hadn't gone out chasing with in a couple of years, so i said yes. we headed out with an initial target of north platte, nebraska. this was on the southern edge of the 10% chance of tornadoes, and i figured we could hopefully catch the storms that would be racing north at 60 mph out of kansas just as they entered this area of higher tornado probabilities. storms fired really early in the day and tornado watches were out by 1pm i believe. as we headed west several tornado warnings were issued in the panhandle of nebraska north into south dakota and even in eastern north dakota. after these initial cells moved out of nebraska, nothing further developed for several hours and the storms that came out of kansas died as well. the clouds would start to go up but would get choked off after about 15-20 minutes it seemed. we made a decision to start heading north where there were a few small cells that would hopefully do something. one of the cells actually had a tornado warning issued briefly for it, but it was already about 20 miles away from us and moving at 65 mph so it was impossible to catch. eventually we ended up at broken bow nebraska with still mainly blue skies over us. we ate and were going to head back home defeated. there was a line of storms that was developing pretty good along the cold front that was now moving in from the west. after only heading back east for about 15 miles we decided heck with it we're this far west let's go and intercept the line moving through. we went back down to I-80, and headed west towards north platte, eventually reaching the town of cozad about 30 miles east of north platte. there we targeted the southern cell of the line moving towards the interstate to our southwest


this was the first view we had of the base of the storm. notice the very slight lowering. it was obviously very hard to tell what this was from this distance

a view of the storm heading towards us

again

again

pic of another cell trying to go up back to our east, this one would also die shortly after

we moved down the highway closer to the storm and got this pic

this was the next stop down the road. we are southwest of cozad, and southeast of gothenburg. about this time the storm went tornado warned

velocity grab on the radar a little after this. notice the white circle, that is our location. the green next to the red in the middle just above our position is the rotation in the storm

this looked to be mainly scud, but you could see the broader rotation in the storm

about heare is where a persistent wall cloud developed. hard to tell the rotation from this point

again



we headed back east to stay ahead of the storm and to try and get back to a road that would take us north across the interstate to try and stay with it. again this storm was moving at near 60 mph! it had ping pong ball sized hail with it as well




we're now north of cozad on the other side of the interstate. the storm is no longer tornado warned, but still has large hail and gusty winds

another pic north of cozad

driving down the interstate taking a pic out my window!

stopped one more time back ahead of the storms to try and get some lightning pics. of course here it wouldn't drop a bolt at all. back in cozad, i experienced some of the most intense lightning ever just as we pulled up to a gas station. i actually didn't feel safe running to and from my car! i wanted to try and get a pic of one of these bolts, but again i FELT TOTALLY UNSAFE, even just having my window open.

here is a link to the storm reports from that day:
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/archive/events/100524/index.html

this is the website for stormchaser reports. there was another rather large tornado in south dakota this day that was seen by a lot of chasers. this one was only rated a EF-2, though i bet it was probably stronger at points when it was out in the open country.
http://stormtrack.org/forum/showthread.php?t=24186



so another chase without a tornado, and none again this year. as i write this report it is almost june and probably only a month left in the season. the forecast is calling for severe storms this tuesday, and then the flow turns to northwest. this weekend i'll be watching for any storms as there will be very high instability and strong shear over iowa where i will be staying with sarah's family. it could be a big event that day! last night and today omaha was missed by more tstorms. they weren't severe but it was rather amusing to watch the storms die right before they got to omaha late last night and early this morning, then sure enough this afternoon the front moved through with nothing, but then 30 miles east and southeast of here storms formed and of course then missed us again. i think i've seen 2 storms here in omaha so far this spring. c'mon june, don't disappoint!!