Day 18 - Last minute Missouri

THU 11 JUN

Original plan was to set our alarms at 4am and watch the severe thunderstorms move over our hotel at Omaha NE - so we did, though the most severe aspects (with 2 inch hail and a report of a tornado) stayed some ways to our south. After going back to sleep and waking at 10am, it looked like the resultant MCS that had carried on ploughing across Iowa was clearing eastwards quite quickly, allowing rapid destabilisation to occur to its rear. We needed to head back to Denver CO for our flight tomorrow, but the temptation to drive a couple of hours in the wrong direction to sample the unstable warm sector was too great, so we quickly left the hotel and drove to Des Moines IA, grabbed lunch, then headed south and east into Missouri (ugh) to try and get ahead of the advancing cold front. Numerous thunderstorms had developed along the frontal zone by this point, a few became tornado-warned and we managed to core-punch the Tail-End Charlie but couldn't see any circulation (would have been rain-wrapped in any case).

By late afternoon we had to leave the storms behind (they were lining out and rather messy anyway, though discrete supercells in the open warm sector over Illinois miles away to our east produced a number of significant and photogenic tornadoes)) to start our long journey west, so we drove for several hours into Kansas to our hotel at Hays KS - a quick stop at a travel centre in Salina KS to buy a few souvenirs.

Day 17 - Missouri frustration

WED 10 JUN

We had a fairly lengthy 6 hour drive to get into position today from our overnight stay in Brookings SD to a target of somewhere in N or NW Missouri. The overnight convection had pushed an outflow boundary farther south than models had generally suggested the day before, adding more time to our journey. We grabbed some lunch at Council Bluffs IA and then headed down I-29 into Missouri to try and catch a few fast-moving supercells (motions of 40+mph) with fairly early initiation, meaning we were often playing catch-up. The environment was ripe for tornadoes, but a lot of the storms were quite messy/HP so hard to get a good visual of any (mostly brief) tornadoes - certainly not helped by the poor chase terrain featuring lots of undulating hills and trees everywhere. A few tornadoes did occur (e.g. near Jamesport MO), but we couldn't see them from our position for the reasons mentioned above. 

All in all a frustrating chase day, and you just know if you could transpose these storms into e.g. Kansas it would have been a lot easier. I also had issues with my GPS not being in the right place on specific sections of roads, which I've never experienced before. Anyway, we ditched the storms by evening and heading back northwestwards to our hotel in Omaha NE, deliberately booked in the hope to catch some severe storms that were due to develop during the early hours of the morning (been a remarkably consistent signal in the models).

Day 16 - North Dakota bust

TUE 09 JUN

I don't think I've agonised so much over a chase target before - there were clearly various areas of interest today, including along the northward moving warm front over southern Canada, near the surface low in the northwest ND, upscaling linear slop along the cold front in western ND/SD, possibly something a bit more discrete in Nebraska (8 hour drive away from our starting point in Bismarck ND) and the slim chance something might fire along alone on a confluence zone straddling the northeast SD / southeast ND / western MN area. I had no interest in chasing in Canada again, and was mindful of where we needed to be tomorrow, so in the end we decided to gamble on the southeast ND risk area, with a remnant MCV travelling towards the area from Nebraska. After a brief hello to Norfolk residents Kathy and Phil who were chasing with Tempest Tours and happened to be staying in the same hotel as us, we headed east to Fargo ND, grabbing lunch in Jamestown ND, and the dropped south to Wahpeton ND where we sat mid-afternoon watching towers attempting to build to our SW. Sadly, once the MCV had overrun, convection became much less enthusiastic and we knew it was unlikely anything was going to happen (too much capping in the mid-levels). 

We tried to salvage something from the day by heading back west to Jamestown to perhaps see the evolving shelf cloud from the thunderstorms developing along the cold front well to the west (and moving eastwards), but even these storms were struggling to attain severe status - so in the end, we booked a hotel at Brookings SD and drove south and east for a few hours as the daylight faded. Soon after arriving at the hotel the line of storms to the west arrived, and became tornado warned to our north.

Day 15 - Travel day

MON 08 JUN

No storms to chase today, so we took the opportunity to leave Canada behind and head back into North Dakota to be in position for the following day. We bumped into fellow Brit chasers See Nature's Fury in Minot ND before arriving at our hotel in Bismarck ND at a markedly early time (for this trip!) of 18:30. After a quick bite to eat we headed to the local cinema to watch the new film Pressure, which was released in the US a week or so ago but not in the UK until September - an enjoyable film!

Day 14 - Canada

SUN 07 JUN

A first for me today - entered Canada as the best environment for supercells (and tornadoes) was north of the border. We targetted Kirkella MB, close to the Saskatchewan/Manitoba border and sat for several hours waiting for storms to initiate, sat directly underneath a stalled boundary. Towards 17:00 convection began to rapidly fire overhead and just to our south, producing a left and right split that raced away to the north, before a more organised supercell evolved to our south. We dropped down to Cromer MB and watched as a wall cloud began to form, and it felt like this supercell could be close to producing a tornado. However, after a while it began to lose a lot of its structure as it became outflow dominant and soon after completely shrivelled up and died.

Thereafter, there wasn't a huge amount of excitement - storms had all lined up on the frontal boundary and were largely outflow dominant. We tried to shimmy southwards down the line to areas of broader mid-level rotation, but they were clearly high-based and struggling. In the end we gave up chasing and drifted east to our hotel in Brandon MB.

Having never chased (or even visited) Canada before a few things stood out to me - the roads are, generally, in poorer condition than the equivalents in the US, many are unpaved or randomly become unpaved halfway down the road. Very few roads have shoulders. Phone signal is questionable in parts of the Prairies, and you can drive for a fair length of time without even coming across a petrol station. This, coupled with the poorly performing storms, made for a rather frustrating chase day.

Day 13 - Travel day

SAT 06 JUN

It looks like we need to be in Canada for tomorrow, so we had a long drive (11 hours) from Beatrice NE to Minot ND, stopping briefly for lunch in Sioux Falls SD and our first sit down meal of the trip in Applebees Jamestown ND. We reached our hotel at Minot very late in the evening, with numerous anvils to our north and west flashing away from storms that were in far W/NW North Dakota and/or across the border in Canada - so we still saw some lightning!

Day 12 - southern Nebraska

FRI 05 JUN

A 4 hour drive to our target of Grand Island NE, so we had a relaxed morning in Mitchell SD before hitting the road around noon and driving south into Nebraska, stopping in Norfolk NE for some lunch. We arrived in Grand Island early evening, by which time a thunderstorm had developed a long ways to our southwest on the Kansas border but seemed to be struggling.

We didn't have to wait long as new updraught towers were going up to both our SE along a stalled but marked W-E boundary, and also along an old cold front to the NW. Despite the convection to our N/NW attaining severe status more quickly, I felt the environment over SE Nebraska was more conducive to tornadogenesis if a discrete supercell could dominate. As such, we nudged progressively southwards and eastwards past Hastings NE to Geneva NE then on to Bruning NE and Daykin NE. Two main cells had developed by this time along this W-E boundary, the cell nearest us had a nice updraught but seemed to be struggling a little bit, whilst the cell to its east (hidden from view to us initially) was more robust on radar. This eastern cell soon became tornado-warned, based on a report of a funnel cloud, so we nudged 10-15 miles east and sat for an hour or two in almost the same spot watching this near-stationary cyclic supercell attempt numerous times to produce a tornado, whilst each new mesocyclone developed progressively farther to the west.

The structure on this storm by mid-late evening was incredible, and as darkness fell we nudged a bit further away to the south to try and take in the whole storm in front of us as lightning activity ramped up. As storms upstream started to grow upscale and make better progress southeastwards we decided to head to Beatrice NE where we'd booked our overnight stay, attempting to get there before the storms did. All in all, an enjoyable chase from a slow-moving/stationary cell and few chasers, which made it feel like you had the storm all to yourself!

Day 11 - South Dakota disappointment

THU 04 JUN

We started the day in Mitchell SD, with several potential targets - stay put in the hope for some evening thunderstorms to develop along a stalled W-E boundary to the north (but likely to upscale fairly quickly), head to NE Kansas where stronger low-level shear would favour a greater tornado risk albeit in a relatively skinny CAPE / weak deep layer wind shear environment, or drift west to the Black Hills and potentially catch some more discrete supercells drifting into W/SW South Dakota from Wymong. After much debating, we decided to choose the latter and drove 4 hours west along I-90 to Rapid City SD, briefly stopping at Firehenge along the way.

After lunching, we had a short walk around the Dinosaur Park in Rapid City, before nudging NW to Sturgis SD. By this stage the initial supercells in NE WY were upscaling and becoming rather poorly organised / only marginally-severe. After looking at surface observations / mesoanalysis we felt the environment was too capped and decided to haul back east on I-90 towards new convection along the stalled boundary in eastern SD. Naturally it took us several hours to reach this, with a nice low precip supercell near Chamberlain SD seemingly struggling to become sustained, but we eventually caught up with an outflow-dominant storm at Wessington Springs SD around sunset, which had a nice shelf cloud. We ended the night in exactly the same hotel in Mitchell SD, having driven for 9 hours (and filled up three times) for effectively one shelf cloud!

Day 10 - southern South Dakota

WED 03 JUN

We left our hotel in Rapid City SD reasonably earlier and targetted Pierre SD, as a round of elevated thunderstorms across the northern half of SD may be worth chasing as they became more surface-based by early afternoon. In the end they looked messy, and I preferred the environment over southern SD so we chilled in Pierre for a fair few hours, went for a nice walk along the river to stretch our legs a bit.

Towards late afternoon convection began to fire along the remnant cold front to our west and southwest, so to close the gap between various cells we drifted south to Vivian SD and then east to Presho SD. One cell became much better organised so it was back to Vivan SD then progressively south and east towards Winner SD as this discrete supercell thrived in its environment. The speed of rotation in the developing wall cloud was incredible, with impressive RFD cut too. As the storm crossed the highway we were on, a notable RFD surge occurred and shortly afterwards a tornado near Ideal SD - though since rain had wrapped around it was impossible to see from our vantage point.

We took the opportunity to reposition, through the town of Winner and out the other side and briefly caught a glimpse of a tornado roping out as the rain ceased. By this stage new cells had formed along the length of the cold front, and so began the upscaling into a linear mode. Nonetheless, this produced a fantastic shelf cloud that we parked up to enjoy as it approached us at sunset, amongst several other storm chasers also taking in the sights. As daylight started to fade we headed east and then north to a hotel in Mitchell SD, arriving in the town at roughly the same time as this line of thunderstorms did. All in all, happy with how today panned out and choices made - I think this was only tornadic storm of the day in the general chase area.

Day 9 - Western South Dakota

TUE 02 JUN

We were perhaps a little late leaving our hotel in Sidney NE, and had to drive a good 4 hours north to Rapid City SD to get close to today's target. We arrived around 14:00-15:00L, but had to drive through a bunch of messy convection over and to the east of the Black Hills - the extent of this hadn't been modelled particularly well, and in conjunction with extensive high cloud from the expanding anvil made me a little unsure if today would actually produce anything worth chasing. 

Still, after some lunch we nudged north to Newell SD where we bumped into other British chasers (See Nature's Fury and Weather Holidays) and chatted with them for a bit. By early evening, a few severe thunderstorms started to develop over the Black Hills and farther north across E/SE Montana, but these seemed to split quite quickly with left movers becoming the dominant cells as they raced northwards. We attempted to catch up with a couple of these west of Buffalo WY as the sun began to set, but eventually gave up and headed back to Rapid City SD to find a hotel for the night. All in all, a disappointing day, but nice to catch up with some fellow Brit chasers if nothing else!

Day 8 - NE Colorado

MON 01 JUN

Had to leave Salina KS quite early as we had a long drive to Denver Airport CO to drop Liam off and then catch a storm conveniently in NE Colorado. As we approached Denver around 14:00 a supercell thunderstorm developed rapidly over the metro and nudged gradually northeastwards towards the airport, so we had a bit of a frantic drive to get to the airport, drop Liam off and get back out before getting stuck in large hail. The amount of traffic on the roads around the airport did not help, especially with people parking underneath bridges and completely blocking freeways for a bit of rain and small hail - so dangerous!

Anyway, we managed to just about get ahead of the storm east of Denver and briefly stopped at Bennett CO to fuel up and grab some lunch. By this point the storm had become much better organised with a clear RFD cut and became tornado warned. It felt like it could produce a tornado at any moment looking at the cloud motion and RFD cut, but it failed to. We nudged east past Byers CO towards Last Chance CO, by which stage new cells had begun to form to our north and northeast. Over time these became more dominant, so we left our original cell behind us and followed these new ones near Akron CO, Otis CO and Yuma CO, one which produced a short lived tornado revealed by a tight ground circulation beneath a funnel aloft. These then became rather HP and upscaled into a bigger complex, so we waved these goodbye and headed north to a hotel in Sidney NE as this was in the right direction for the next day's chase.

Day 7 - Eastern Kansas

SUN 31 MAY

We left our hotel in Kearney NE mid-morning to drive 4-5 hours southwards back into Kansas for today's target of Florence KS. Stopped at Salina KS to grab some lunch, and arrived within the risk area by mid-afternoon. Several boundaries (dryline, differential heating and residual outflow boundaries from early morning MCS activity) were draped across the area, and would potentially provide the focus for thunderstorm development later.

The airmass was fairly capped, despite being hot and humid with MLCAPE up to 5,000 J/kg. There were several attempts at initiation, but it wasn't really until 19:00L onwards that we finally saw sustained thunderstorms developing in the vicinity of the I-35 corridor between Wichita KS and Emporia KS. We kept ahead of these, driving through Eureka KS then up to just south of Madison KS. By sunset (20:30L) an impressive low-precipitation supercell had evolved near Matfield Green KS and was drifting slowly eastwards towards us, the structure lit up brilliantly by the setting sun. We sat in the same position for the best part of 3 hours watching this and subsequent supercells run ESE'wards just to our north as darkness descended. These were producing a ridiculous amount of CG lightning, it was hard to know at times which direction to focus our attention!

A tornado warning was issued at 21:44L but we couldn't see it ourselves, relying heavily on lightning to reveal any rotation. However, after getting back to our hotel in Salina KS at 02:00L (we had to drive 2 hours to get closer to our target for the next day) I discovered that I had captured the brief nocturnal tornado at 21:40L only revealed by two well-timed CG lightning strikes!

Brief nocturnal tornado from this right-split supercell thunderstorm near Madison KS, revealed by well-timed CG strikes

Closer look at the tornado and CG lightning

Day 6 - SW Nebraska

SAT 30 MAY

We left our hotel at Salina KS for a 4 hour drive to our target of McCook NE, stopping at Hays KS to nip into Walmart and grab some lunch. Storms were expected to fire mid-late afternoon in NE Colorado and SW Nebraska on the northern periphery of a surface low over west Kansas, along an effective dryline/warm front intersection. The first cells developed by late afternoon, one more or less overhead, and another SW of Imperial NE. We opted to go after the Imperial storm initially, as it looked more sustained and it became tornado warned. At this stage I think there had been a brief landspout, which we didn't see, but cell mode was getting a little messy as storms struggled in the high CAPE limited deep layer (ample low-level) shear environment, resulting in often outflow-dominant modes.

By early evening additional cells were forming along the W-E oriented boundary, so we trundled north and east to keep up with these. They tended to be rather pulsey, struggling with interactions with adjacent cells etc - however, the storm approaching Wellfleet NE was much better organised, though approaching from the west we were not in an ideal position to see the inflow region and missed a brief tornado, hidden behind a tennis-ball sized hail core. We followed this storm, and came across some very large hail on the ground just northwest of town, before drifting north to North Platte NE. Once storms crossed north of I-80 they became rather messy and less severe, so we left them and headed east to Kearney NE to find a hotel, and be a bit closer to the next day's action. 

Turned out a rather photogenic tornado developed near Yuma CO from the cells well to the west (that we briefly intercepted near Imperial) - sadly we missed this, but were happy with our hail finds anyway!

Hail up to tennis ball sized (>6 cm diameter) at the intersection of US 83/23 northwest of Wellfleet NE around 19:50L

 

Day 5 - Northern Oklahoma

FRI 29 MAY

Initially the plan was to chase between Amarillo TX and Lubbock TX. Given this was close to our starting position in Amarillo, we had a nice slow start to the day, went to the Big Texan for breakfast and then sat in a park by a lake for a bit. It was very warm (28C) but with a dewpoint in single figures, and overcast skies from weak elevated convection, it didn't feel particularly "stormy". By this point it was becoming clear northern Oklahoma may have a decent supercell and tornado risk, given significant CAPE, strong low-level shear and the presence of an old outflow boundary. However, deep layer shear was a bit meagre.

After debating for a bit, we opted to ditch the west Texas risk, where model output had never really been particularly enthusiastic on supercells (more like multicells with strong outflow winds given high LCLs) and decided to drive 4 hours through the afternoon into Oklahoma. Cells began to fire en-route, and the SPC also started to acknowledge the risk. We made it to Enid OK by early evening, although by this stage the initial storms, which looked visually impressive, had generated a substantial cold pool radiating across north central Oklahoma, and effectively undercutting most of the storms.

We hung around Orlando OK for a little bit, then some new cells went up to our SW and became organised with some decent structure, wall cloud etc, but then this fizzled - it seemed that the cells were struggling to become sustained for any length of time. As the sun began to set, we decided to head north towards Salina KS for our hotel for the night (in the direction of where we needed to be for the following day), whilst being treated by some fantastic lightning displays at times from marginally-severe storms that kept popping up nearby.

Also, turns out aside from a couple of supercells near Amarillo, much of west TX was a complete bust! So I'm glad we made the decision when we did to change our target.

Day 4 - Texas Panhandle

THU 28 MAY 

When you've got to go, you've got to go

Pretty quiet day really, a few different target areas but none that would yield particularly organised convection, some a bit too far for us (e.g. Colorado) given we were starting the day in Wichita Falls TX so we opted to hang around the SE TX Panhandle in the hope something might get going over the caprock late afternoon. We sat in Childress TX next to a lake and watched convection try repeatedly to initiate, but clearly it was struggling with cap/dry air entrainment. In the end, we decided to just drive to Amarillo TX to find a hotel and chill for the evening, in position for the following day's risk.

Day 3 - Texas Panhandle

WED 27 MAY

Left San Antonio TX at 09:00 for a long (6 hour) drive back north to the Texas Panhandle. Stopped briefly for lunch at San Angelo TX, and arrived in Plainview mid-afternoon. Remnant MCV over the Panhandle to the north, near I-40 and northwards, was creating a favourable environment with low-level shear / vorticity ideal for funnel clouds / low-level rotation. Indeed a couple of funnel clouds were reported, but the depth of convection was limited, with a lack of strong winds aloft to aid deep layer shear, so nothing ever became particularly organised.

Eventually some cells started gaining more strength near Clarendon TX, so we hopped onto these at Estelline and followed them for a few hours down Highway 285 to Childress TX and Quanah TX, stopping several times to take photos. Some blowing dust was evident at times, and we let the outflow hit us each time before sliding a little farther southeast each time. A few chasers on this storm, but all-in-all quite a pleasant evening chase with relatively quiet roads.

Once darkness fell, given they were sub-severe, we decided to let them pass to the south after giving us some heavy rain and lightning - that's when the fun and games began trying to find a hotel room. Most hotels within a 90 minute drive from us were fully booked, with only one offering a single room (not enough for the three of us) for an extortionate $250! We decided to book something cheaper in Wichita Falls TX and headed that way instead, arriving around 22:30.

Sub-severe thunderstorm near Childress TX

Sub-severe thunderstorm at sunset near Quanah TX

Day 2 - Mexican Border

TUE 26 MAY

We left Roswell NM at an early 8am and drove for hours through SE NM into west TX, stopping briefly for lunch at Fort Stockton TX. We were trying to catch up with a line of storms that was moving about 20-30 mph. Eventually we cut through the line around mid-afternoon as we ran close to the Mexico border. A quick stop for fuel at Del Rio and a cell went up over our heads, dropping numerous close range CGs! By this stage two supercells over the border in Mexico were slowly approaching the Texan border, one produced a very photogenic tornado in Mexico (we couldn't see it as too far away / behind the rain curtain). As these storms came into Texas they evolved into a bowing line, with a substantial read inflow jet to our north (radial velocities around 80 mph which apparently was backed up by a surface wind gust of 79 mph). We kept up with the leading edge of this for a few hours, which exhibited some nice structure at times, and a brief period of rotation as a lone cell ahead of this line was scooped up and absorbed. As darkness began to fall, we tried to go after a separate supercell to the east but this soon died, so we called it quits and aimed to get to our hotel in San Antonio TX before the squall line to the west caught up with us. As this approached the metro a couple of brief spin-ups became apparent in radar data, and a tornado warning was subsequently issued.

Severe thunderstorm near Crystal City TX

Day 1 - Travel Day through Colorado into New Mexico

Mon 25 May

Not much in the way of severe convection, at least not within a drivable distance today, so the plan was to amble southwards into New Mexico to get closer to Tuesday's risk area (in W/SW Texas). Somehow spent 90 minutes in Walmart in Denver before eventually getting on the road and heading south on I-25 through some beautiful Colorado scenary at the foot of the Rockies. Numerous pulse storms had developed by late morning and into the afternoon, producing some occasional rain, lightning and gusty winds. 

Grabbed some lunch in Trinidad CO before crossing the border into New Mexico, enjoying several CGs from sub-severe storms in the vicinity. Eventually reached our hotel in Roswell NM in the evening.

Video still of CG lightning near Wagon Mound NM

Day 0 - LHR to DEN

Sun 24 May

Hot day in London, reaching 32°C in the afternoon. Hoppa bus didn't turn up at our hotel, so we had to make our way to Terminal 3 through a different bus to T5, and then the Heathrow Express, which delayed us for bag drop. Quick bite to eat, and then it was time to board - this was delayed due to the plane overheating, and then when we were eventually allowed to board we had to sit for the best part of 1h30 on a plane with no air-conditioning (it was over 30C on board) whilst engineers outside tried to fix it - very uncomfortable is an understatement!

Eventually, 2 hours after we should have departed, we were eventually on our way across the North Atlantic, via southern Greenland, to Denver. Fairly quick process through the airport, onto the shuttle bus and picked up our hire car - with a nice sunset over the Rockies to end the day.

Flying over southern Greenland

Landing at Denver