I had returned home at about 4 am the night before from my chase in southwest Nebraska. I slept for about 6 hours, and then had to work a bit before heading out. My original plan was to head for northwest Iowa and leave about 2 pm. I'm sure I've mentioned in some of my other chases that I have the bad habit of waiting until the last possible minute to leave. I'm not sure why I do that but it's a bad habit that has cost me a few times in getting to the right spot early enough. I took a look at things about 1230 and there was already a monstrous supercell in north central Kansas that was producing long track tornadoes and heading north into south central Nebraska. I thought there was no way this storm would keep going far enough north for me and my target area which was now around Grand Island Nebraska along I-80.
I kind of piddled around a bit longer when all the sudden a watch was already issued for central Nebraska. It was a PDS watch too which is short for particularly dangerous situation. They issue these type of watches when there is a chance for strong to violent tornadoes and extremely large hail. I quickly showered and got my things together. I had to fill up and was on the road about 145 pm.
As I headed west down I-80 the initial long track storm was still producing tornadoes as it headed towards Lexington/Kearney Nebraska. Of course though, it eventually weakened but a new storm quickly developed to it's north and headed towards the interstate. About this time I was still an hour away from that area. What was amazing to see though was storms rapidly forming right in front of me along an east/west arc basically right along the interstate. The new storm that formed had a tornado warning for it within 30-45 minutes of its development and soon a confirmed tornado was on the ground headed towards Elm Creek right on the interstate. I was going to be about 30-45 minutes too late!! My hope was that this storm would be long track like the first storm that came out of Kansas and I would be able to catch up with it. However, the new storms that were forming to it's east eventually merged with this storm cutting of its inflow. This was bad for the tornado chances with this storm but it was good for me because now I was closer to the new area of possible tornadic development. I went north of Kearney towards Pleasanton where there was now a new tornado warning. As I approached the storm I could tell it was very high precip which can make it hard to see a tornado. I stayed on the south side of the storm, and at one point thought I saw a funnel but it quickly disappeared. However there was a report of tornado on the ground just northeast of Pleasanton.
There were new storms that were forming further to the east, but they were all in a east/west line that was moving north. Normally, when storms are in a line you want to be on the end of the line that is still receiving the best inflow of moist, warm air. So in this case that would have been the storms furthest east. I thought about leaving the area and heading east, but the area of storms that I was on continued to have tornado warnings and supposed confirmed sightings while the storms to the east didn't look that impressive and were only severe warned. I continued north and a little east with the storms all the way to Rockville, NE along highway 50 never seeing anything that impressive. At one point, I got into the outflow or maybe even RFD of the storm and experienced winds close to 60 mph, but never any funnels or tornadoes.
I hadn't been looking real close at the radar at the storms way to the east near Grand Island and York for a while as I was focused on my area. I took a look and there was now a tornado warning for a storm just southwest of York! The storm had a pretty good looking hook on it too. Within minutes a report came out of a confirmed tornado on the ground near the interstate southwest of Hampton. I was ticked!! I should have followed my instinct and gone back to the east when I saw the line forming. This storm was all by itself so it had a great environment to produce in.
So now I decided to try to race back east to catch up with this storm. Again, my hope was that this would somehow hold together for over the hour it would take me to get back to the storm. As I was meandering east, I was trying to figure out the best roads that would get me to point where I could meet the storm. I ended up meeting the storm near Silver Creek, but the storm had of course weakened and was no longer producing a tornado. I had hope that it would still be producing, as there were almost continuous reports of a tornado on the ground for that hour I was trying to catch up. I followed the storm for a while longer until just about Columbus when I decided to give up. I started to head towards home heading south. There was a line of severe thunderstorms racing towards Omaha and one more cell that had formed near York that was moving north. I decided to head south towards the cell since it was now severe warned for large hail. As soon as I left Columbus though the storm I was chasing became tornado warned, but it was too far away for me to turn back around. The cell I headed towards to the south rapidly weakened as I approached it as well and had no hail by the time I intercepted it. Dejected, I headed towards home ready to give up for the day. As I came into my neighborhood, I noticed everything was dark. The storm that had blown through Omaha had 65-75 mph winds and knocked out power to our neighborhood as well as taking down some trees and blowing out a few windows. Of course I missed that too!!
Looking back I could have done a couple of things differently. If I would have left 30-45 minutes earlier, I would have made it to Elm Creek area when that tornado was on the ground near I-80. If I would have left about 45 minutes later, I would have not tried to make it to that original storm and would have been on the major tornado producer that formed near York. Yet another frustrating chase day!!
In reality, there was only 2 storms that produced all of the tornadoes, so there really wasn't the outbreak that was potentially forecasted. Here is a storm survey of all the storms and tornadoes in Nebraska:(click on the link below)
Tornado surveys
some youtube videos of the tornadoes that I missed:(
Bradshaw tornado
I was in this immediate area and somehow missed this tornado by a few minutes:
Ravenna tornado
Osceola tornado
text from PDS tornado watch issued:
TORNADO WATCH NUMBER 523
NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK
100 PM CDT MON JUN 20 2011
THE NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER HAS ISSUED A
TORNADO WATCH FOR PORTIONS OF
PARTS OF NORTH CENTRAL KANSAS
LARGE PART OF EASTERN NEBRASKA
EFFECTIVE THIS MONDAY AFTERNOON AND EVENING FROM 100 PM UNTIL 800
PM CDT.
...THIS IS A PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION...
DESTRUCTIVE TORNADOES...LARGE HAIL TO 4 INCHES IN DIAMETER...
THUNDERSTORM WIND GUSTS TO 80 MPH...AND DANGEROUS LIGHTNING ARE
POSSIBLE IN THESE AREAS.
THE TORNADO WATCH AREA IS APPROXIMATELY ALONG AND 65 STATUTE
MILES EAST AND WEST OF A LINE FROM 50 MILES EAST NORTHEAST OF
ONEILL NEBRASKA TO 25 MILES SOUTH SOUTHEAST OF HILL CITY KANSAS.
FOR A COMPLETE DEPICTION OF THE WATCH SEE THE ASSOCIATED WATCH
OUTLINE UPDATE (WOUS64 KWNS WOU3).
REMEMBER...A TORNADO WATCH MEANS CONDITIONS ARE FAVORABLE FOR
TORNADOES AND SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS IN AND CLOSE TO THE WATCH
AREA. PERSONS IN THESE AREAS SHOULD BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR
THREATENING WEATHER CONDITIONS AND LISTEN FOR LATER STATEMENTS
AND POSSIBLE WARNINGS.
OTHER WATCH INFORMATION...CONTINUE...WW 522...
DISCUSSION...INTENSE SURFACE LOW OVER NCENTRAL KS WITH RAPID
DESTABILIZATION OCCURRING INTO NEB WHERE SHEAR IS VERY FAVORABLE
FOR SUPERCELL DEVELOPMENT. SUPERCELL THUNDERSTORMS WELL DEVELOP
AHEAD OF THE TRACK OF THE LOW WITH POTENTIAL FOR STRONG TORNADOES
INCREASING THRU THE AFTERNOON AS SYSTEM MOVES NNE. VERY LARGE HAIL
ALSO LIKELY GIVEN MLCAPES AOA 2500 J/KG AND LARGE HODOGRAPHS.
day 2 outlook- at this point i was sure I would be headed to northwest Iowa
day 2 severe probabilities- note high percentages of severe weather
day 1 outlook 7 am
day 1 hail outlook 7 am
day 1 tornado outlook 7 am/ was a little disappointed the tornado risk wasn't higher!
day 1 wind outlook 7 am
day 1 outlook 3 pm- note the risk area has really changed
day 1 tornado outlook 3 pm/ hatched probabilities showing risk of strong tornadoes!!
day 1 hail outlook 3 pm
day 1 wind outlook 3 pm
pic of developing storms
a couple of shots of the last storm I intercepted
again
last one
some radar grabs of the tornadic storms:
400 pm- tornado warned storm near Elm Creek w/ tornado on the ground. I'm the white circle to the far left side of the screen. I need to get there!!
422 pm-tornado warned storm north of Amherst with a tornado still on the ground. Again, I'm the white circle racing towards the storm. Note the separate storm to it's east. This storm would eventually cut off the inflow to the storm to the left and then become the dominant storm for a while.
434 pm- storms have merged now. the main area of rotation now is near Pleasanton in the center of the screen. I'm close now!
434 pm- storm relative velocity showing the bright red next to bright green in the center near Pleasanton. There was a report of tornado at this time but I didn't see it
549 pm- rapidly developing tornadic storm southwest of York with tornado near Bradshaw
705 pm- nice hook echo on tornado warned storm. I believe a tornado was still on the ground at this time, but storm soon weakened after this.
route taken:
part 1
part 2
total miles: 479
tornadoes: 0
largest hail: none
strongest wind: est 60 mph
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