June 25th was an unusual day to say the least. Very high dewpoints in the mid to upper 70s were present along a boundary in southern MN. This boundary slowly moved north through the day. As it did, storms formed along and just north of it from around Alber Lea north and northeast. We intercepted one such storm that was tornado warned. As it rode the boundary, it spun hard. It had a good velocity couplet on radar and developed low level rotation quite obvious! Soon a broad rotating lowering formed with condensation fingers rising into it. Then a funnel formed that we could not confirm touched down. There were tornado reports from other locals that were right near it. These types of set ups are extremely difficult to chase, let along witness a tornado with numerous storms along and north of the boundary. But it was a pretty fun day, with decent results!
June 16th Dickens, Nebraska Once a Decade Tornado!!!!!!
June 16th, a day that is now etched our my mind forever. Two targets were evident in the morning, the warm front in Minnesota and the front/theta e axis in Nebraska. Minnesota produced a few tornadoes, but nothing compared to the long lived photogenic beauty in Nebraska. After chasing in Montana the day before, we had a long drive to make Nebraska in time for storm initiation. Over 4000 CAPE, moderate shear and near 70 dewpoints present, we knew we had no time to waste! We blasted towards the target south of I-80 between Ogallala and North Platte, as we approached Lake McConaughy, strong updrafts started forming south of North Platte. We jumped on I-80 headed east as one updraft took over the show! It looked like a nuclear bomb had gone off! Within 20 minutes a tornado warning was issued and almost immediately a tornado was reported on the ground. This was a landspout that last 8 minutes. Soon after that a supercellular tornado formed, and firmly planted itself just east of Dickens. We were finally in a position to blast south on the back side of the supercell and could see this tornado 25 miles away! About 20 minutes later we arrived near Dickens as the tornado became a huge cone/stovepipe shaped tornado, barely moving! We sat up our cameras and camcorders and captured this 45 minute long EF2 tornado as is barely moved, only traveling 3 miles in it’s lifetime. Sitting up on a hill gave us a great view of the tornado and the sun lighting it almost white with a rainbow was a sight to behold! One of the prettiest tornadoes this decade! It eventually roped out, moving slowly southwest and tried a couple more times to produce. It was amazingly electrified during this phase as well, with a classic liberty bell shaped structure! A day we’ll never forget! Enjoy the pics!
June 13th Potter, Nebraska Surprise Tornadic Supercell
June 13th looked poor on paper. Modest shear, moisture and CAPE along the Cheyenne Ridge between Colorado and Nebraska. We started west towards Cheyenne where moisture was really quite meager. Much better and deeper moisture and instability existed further east, from near Sidney, Nebraska eastward. Strong easterly winds were pushing that moisture westward, but it didn’t look like it would make it in time before storms collapsed. Outflow surge from Cheyenne storms blew east and when it interacted with that deeper moisture, a line of storms, some supercells, exploded. Near Potter, NE on I-80 an updraft anchored and spun hard. It became incredibly electrified! It also produced a 5 minute multivortex tornado before it produced a tapered truncated cone tornado right near the interstate. Staying down wind a few miles allowed us to get out of the intense lightning threat, but also limited the view we had. But we were able to see the tornado and structure of the supercell together. It was very nice! Quite the surprise ending to a marginal day. Once in awhile nature gives you those surprises! Enjoy the pics!
June 10th Marfa, Texas Supercell and Weak Tornado
June 10th took us deep into southwest Texas in the Davis Mountains. One of the prettiest places in the state. Northwest flow aloft and southeast surface winds provided decent shear, and dewpoints in the low to mid 60s, fueled 3000 CAPE. The ingredients were there for severe storms and supercells. What we didn’t expect was to see a tornado, albeit a weak one! Mid afternoon we were near Alpine watching storms come off Mt Livermore and move southeast. The struggled mightily, so we left there and headed west to the surface triple point just west of Marfa. A supercell had formed and was anchored so we knew it would be spinning. As we arrived, a big blocky wall cloud was present with intense cgs raining down to our west. Soon a clear slot formed and you coudl see the RFD wrapping around the mesocyclone. Within another 15 minutes a dirt column formed and a small funnel was visible at cloud base. This persisted for about 8 minutes. What a surprise! The storm became outflow dominant due to weak flow at anvil level, and soon a tornado warning was issued (for the one we saw, but reported by another storm chaser!). We stayed with it for a bit longer until the outflow surged out from the supercell and it collapsed. A nice end to a day that we though would produce a decent storm. Enjoy the pics!
June 8th Lakeview, Texas Tornado Warned Supercell
June 8th featured a couple of different plays. First one could play the cold front dropping south across the high plains into the OK/TX panhandles. This ultimately produced one tornadic storm that was high based ingesting only dewpoints in the 50s, but still managed to drop a couple of tornadoes. The second play was to chase the area just off the caprock southeast of Amarillo along an outflow boundary with extreme instability and very high dewpoints in the 70s. We chose the southern play based on the great parameters. We arrived in Amarillo as cumulus towers formed southeast of town and developed into severe thunderstorms. One storm latched on to the boundary and spun like crazy, getting tornado warned. We stayed with it south of Claude all the way down to Lakeview and beyond. It was an electrified machine. It also produced huge hail and tried numerous times to produce a tornado. But it did not unfortunately. It was one of those days where the least likely area produced the only decent tornado of the day. Only a couple of chasers played the northern play and were coming from Denver headed to the southern target when the northern storm went up and produced. Luck of the draw lol!!! Anyway, our supercell was a beauty! It eventually gusted out so we moved southwest along the dryline to play more supercells. We encountered one near Jayton that came very close to producing a tornado. It was also tornado warned. Soon, everything merged into a line and the show was over. Fun day for all! Enjoy the pics!
June 5th Morton, Texas Wedge Tornado and Many More!!!!!
June 5th. What more can be said??? One of the most incredible days in the 2025 storm chasing season! We started off the day in Lubbock, Texas. The target was to find the triple point, which appeared based on satellite and surface obs to be near Dora, New Mexico. We positioned ourselves near Causey, NM where 2 large updrafts were forming. We decided to play the southern most developing storm. The storm sat anchored for a couple of hours before it finally started its trek southeast along an outflow boundary from previous days storms. Just before it reached the Texas border it spun hard and became tornado warned. The merry go round ensued and quickly dropped a tapered cone tornado that was on the ground for a couple of minutes. It lifted as the storm moved east, but the low level mesocyclone stayed in tack. Soon several different tornadoes formed, and eventually stout stovepipe tornado descended. After this another elephant trunk shaped tornado formed as well. You could see the occlusion happened with the old meso dying and a new one forming east of us. We blasted east to get on the other side of it and quickly an extremely large, very dusty tornado formed. It grew to a mile wide and just missed the town of Morton, Texas. We got ahead of the tornado as it became completely obscured with dust and rain. Several miles east of town it disippated, and yet another tornado formed just to our north. Within a few minutes very strong RFD winds and atomized rain smacked into us, so we blasted east to try to get ahead of it. As we did, another ghostly white tornado came out of the rain just to our north. Realizing the mesocyclone was hopelessly buried in dirt and rain, we blasted east towards Lubbock. Another very large tornado occurred right to our north that we could not see, so we decided it was time to call off the chase. Later that evening, after we ended the chase, one last tornado formed near Reece Center. Since we were already done and settled into our hotel, we did not go back out because it would have been too late to make it there. An absolutely CRAZY day and I am so thankful there were no fatalities with this supercell. Enjoy the photos and this Youtube video of the Morton tornado. Another video will be made soon showing the rest of the tornadoes!
June 3rd, Windthorst, Texas Tornado Warned Supercell
June 3rd looked like a day with abundant moisture and CAPE, but fairly weak shear. We knew we’d need a boundary interaction to produce some rotating storms to get a tornado to form. We dropped south from OKC to Wichita Falls, TX to play a developing supercell. The cell quickly took on an outflow dominant look, so we decided to drop south of it and see if anything else would form. As we did near Archer City, a new updraft formed and merged with the old storm. An outflow boundary surged south from Oklahoma convection and smashed into our newly intensifying cell. Just what we needed! Soon, the low levels started spinning wildly! A couple of small funnels would form and dissipate. Then as rain and huge hail wrapped around the mesocyclone, a large cone funnel formed back in the rain. We could never confirm if it touched down or not, but usually when it is 3/4 of the way down, you would assume there would be a circulation. The darkened pic to highlight the funnel is courtesy of SLT guide James Breitenbach. It is certainly compelling that it could have touched down! Excuse the blurry image as I accidentally hit the focus ring as I sat the camcorder on the dash! Ugh….
June 2nd Sargent, Nebraska Intense Supercell
Although June 2nd didn’t look like a tornado day (and it wasn’t), we were hoping for some pretty storm structure. Limited moisture, but steep lapse rates and high CAPE would provide the ingredients to get storms to form. Moderate deep layer shear would cause storms to spin and look nice. They also produced copious amounts of lightning and very large hail to baseball sized. We intercepted a very nice supercell near Sargent, Nebraska that sat anchored along a stationary front for hours. Structure was quite nice with the striated “stack of plates” look to the updraft, and it even produced a couple of shear funnels at cloud base. Since they were very slow moving, we were able to sit and watch for long periods of time. Eventually, they gusted out as we left to head to our hotel for the night. A fun day and a bit better than I was planning on. Enjoy the pics!
May 25th Afton, Texas Tornadic Supercell
May 25th looked like a high CAPE, lower shear day. A supercell formed west of Matador early in the afternoon, and drifted south along a boundary. It just never had the look like it wanted to produce. Flow around 850-700mb was lacking and it showed. Further south from town, we ended up near Afton on an FM road. Chaser traffic was pretty bad, but we managed to get out from under the hook and watched as the storm’s RFD really cranked up. A truncated cone funnel formed and reportedly touched down. Within a few minutes it dissipated and the storm became outflow dominant. Still in chase mode, we targeted a new supercell southwest of Haskell. By the time we got there, the tail end storm rapidly intensified. Reports of a brief tornado came in, but from our location northeast of the updraft, looking down the notch, we could not confirm or deny. A couple of suspicious lowerings were observed, but that was about it. The electrification of this storm was other worldly! Eventually it weakened as a cluster formed, so we blew it off and headed back to Oklahoma City for other chase day. An exciting day that we all enjoyed some edge of your seats chasing! We hope you like the photos!
May 18th Bennett, CO Tornadoes Event
It is not often that the hunter becomes the hunted. However, of May 18th, that is exactly what happened at our home near Bennett, CO. A supercell thunderstorm developed southwest of our house. It produced it’s first of 4 tornadoes near Southlands (Aurora). The second tornado formed southwest of Box Elder Creek Ranches where we live. As it traveled northeast, Caryn Hill saw it and took action. She alerted locals in our miniranch neighborhood and then took off to chase it. It entered our residential area causing EF1 damage. It destroyed barns, garages, other structures and unfortunately killed farm animals. The second tornado dissipated northeast of our house as a third and then fourth tornado formed. These caused extensive damage near Bennett and were both rated EF2. Caryn stayed with the supercell and tornadoes as they moved north of Bennett and eventually roped out. After returning to Box Elder Creek Ranches, she and other neighbors jumped in to help those with damage. Our place was mostly spared, with just some downed trees, and a roof leak which we aren’t sure exactly how it happened. I guess with 80-100 mph winds hitting around the tornado anything is possible! Here’s some pics and also a Youtube video of the event.
