June 6th was an in between day for me and the tours, thus I couldn’t resist a highly sheared environment in western Nebraska. Caryn and I, along with a couple of guests, intercepted 2 beautifully structured and tornado warned supercells. The first near Thedford and the second near Hershey. The structure and electrification of the second storm was absolutely breath taking!
Late May 2009 Images
From mid through late May, nature did not cooperate with an active severe weather pattern. A large ridge of high pressure, along with a persistent gulf coastal frontal boundary would prevent decent moisture from returning to the plains states. When you operate a tour, you still have to find the little nuggets nature gives you. The pictures below are those nuggets from May 19 through 31st.
First 25 days of April, 2009
This is a collection of photos from storms I chased during the first 25 days of April. They are at various locations as shown with each photo’s caption.
August 11th through 17th, 2008 Colorado Storms
Over a several day period, severe storms developed over eastern Colorado and western Nebraska. I was able to chase several days. Decent upslope flow, along with fair moisture, instability and shear would allow for organized storms, including supercells to develop. The results of my chases during this time are shown below. Everyday, I was on a storm that had a tornado warning.
July 15th/16th Nebraska and South Dakota Tornado Warned Storms
July 15 and 16 took me to northern Nebraska and South Dakota to play storms along the dryline. Shear wasn’t expected to be very strong, but enough to help generate supercells, and to my surprise tornado warned supercells. July 15th took us to Nebraska where a large supercell developed west of O’Neill. This storm was fairly high based, but rotating nonetheless. It produced golfball sized hail and had very high winds once it lined out. July 16th took me to central South Dakota along the Missouri River where numerous severe storms formed near dark. Lightning was decent and the hail was large, also to golfball sized.
June 23rd and 24th, 2008 Northern Plains Supercells
June 23rd and 24th kept us in the northern plains, from Nebraska to North Dakota. Ample moisture, decent shear and good instability would provide for severe storms on both days. Several tornado warned and severe warned storms would form, but would not produce tornadoes. Instead very large hail to baseball size and strong outflow winds would be the primary severe weather modes. Structure of HP supercells and a magnificent shelf cloud from a bowed out line in North Dakota on the 24th would give me great photo opportunities.
June 1st, 2008 Western Nebraska Tornado Warned Supercell
I didn’t have a lot of hope for this day. Limited moisture and CAPE, along with respectable shear, I thought would result in high based storms, producing marginal hail. I did not expect a tornado warned higher based supercell to form and become one of the prettiest storms of the young season thus far. We started with trashy storms near Scottsbluff and watched as this storm developed amidst the piles of crappy cumulus towers associated with those storms. We finally let it pummel s with golfball sized hail near Chappell, NE.
May 29th, 2008 Nebraska and Kansas Tornadofest
May 29th was advertised as a High Risk from the Storm Prediction Center. It seemed all ingredients were in place for a significant severe weather event, including strong to violent tornadoes. We decided to play the warm front along the KS/NE border area and as far west as we could. The first supercell of the day formed north of Mc Cook and became tornado warned almost instantly. It produced the Kearney, Nebraska tornado that caused significant damage. We followed the storm to east of Kearney when it became totally rain choked. We then dropped south into north central Kansas and caught the cyclic tornadic supercell from Tipton, Kansas, northeast towards Jewell, Kansas. The storm was a sight to behold!
September 6th, 2007 South Central Nebraska Supercell
Good shear, great moisture and instability, and a boundary would set the stage for severe storms in Nebraska September 6th. I headed out to my target of Lexington, NE and arrived by mid afternoon. Cells tried and tried to form, each time getting choked by the cap. Finally early evening, several supercells formed. The storm shown above was tornado warned and at times ther appeared to be funnels back in the notch of this HP. One time a cone shaped funnel extended halfway to the ground, but I could not confirm any tornadic touchdown. We did encounter hail golfball size with this activity.
August 14th, 2007 Southwest Nebraska Supercells
August 14th was a day that I was hoping would provide for a great nighttime lightning opportunity. A short wave was timed so that intense thunderstorm development would occur during the early evening. I was not disappointed. Great moisture and instability would couple with lift along a stationary boundary to provide intense supercell thunderstorms. The storm pictured here produced golfball sized hail, 75 MPH winds and two funnel clouds that I saw.
