June 3, 2002 Eastern Colorado Hailstorm

Moist upslope flow and climatology sent us packing to eastern Colorado this day. As amazing as it might sound, there are hotspots east of the Rocky Mountain chain that are highly reliable severe thunderstorm generators. Under a given pattern of low-level winds and the presence of low-level moisture, one can often correctly choose on any given day which of the numerous topographic ridges in east-central Colorado will produce the best storm. This day it was fairly clear that the Palmer Divide southwest of Limon would be a good starting point. We headed to Limon and were soon greeted by a rather high-based, outflow dominant supercell storm that had little or no hope of producing a tornado. The reason for this mode of supercell was the lack of deep low-level moisture. As we drove towards Limon our onboard hygrometer measured dewpoints falling into the 40's. Had mid-50 dewpoints been present at the base of a deep, poorly-mixed moist layer the strong deep-layer shear probably would have supported tornadic storms.

An ominous shelf with "teeth" approaches the group. We're just east of Limon on the county road network just north of I-70. The storm is clearly outflow-dominant.	The fragmented shelf approaches us. Note the blue/green color to the core. Shortly after this image was captured the forward-flank core pivoted southward, smashing us with copious amounts of tennis-ball sized hail.	We race east and south to stay ahead of this highly outflow-dominant supercell. Here we are moving south on Hwy 59 as a large, strong gustnado races towards us.	The group finally stops to film the storm structure from the intersection of CR28 and CR G 15 miles south of Stratton. Note the "beaver tail", suggestive of inflow above the surface outflow layer.
Another shot of the group dutifully filming the weakening storm. We eventually left the storm for greener pastures to the south. Once all storms died we stopped in  Cheyenne Wells, CO, attracting hordes of other chasers. We all had a nice little storm chaser get together right in the middle of town!