Omaha Tornado Chaser: 5/21/11 Omaha local chase and lightning shots

I always like days like this where I can hop in the car last minute or even take pics from my back deck of storms in the area. On this day, a bunch of strong to sometimes severe storms formed southwest of Omaha and moved over the metro area. Also, storms redeveloped and moved near the metro area as well. The first storms moved right over my house in northwest Omaha. They were severe warned for up to quarter sized hail. I took the first couple of pics from my deck, but then decided I wanted to be out and about in my car so I could try to get into the strongest of storms and hopefully put some more dents in it!
As I was leaving the house, hail started to fall up to nickel size. I kept on heading towards southwest Omaha. A stronger storm was forming and moving into southeast Omaha. I ended up heading east on I-80 into southwest Council Bluffs. The storm was strengthening and dropped hail near to quarter sized as it headed east. I fell behind it for a while letting the hail and very heavy rain go over me. I eventually headed east on Hwy 92 and never did catch up with the storm again. However, I came across a ton of hail covering the highway and in the ditches. Not wanting to drive fast across the hail, I knew I wouldn't catch back up with storm so I pulled over to take a look at the hail and take some pics. The amount of hail was very impressive and was up to quarter to ping pong ball sized.
As I headed home there was another storm developing across Bellevue that dropped up to golf ball sized hail. I made it home and had a great view of the storms still going strong east of town, so I took a bunch of good lightning pics. Overall I drove about 50 miles and saw some pretty good storms and great structure!