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

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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

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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