The Weathervine gang, Garry Wellman, and his chase partner Travis observed two or three tornadoes with the initial supercell that moved from Thayer County into Jefferson and then Saline Counties. I may have observed a tornado west of De Witt, and another near Plymouth after dark, all pending video review. I didn't get a good look at any of them.
We targeted an area from Hebron to Red Oak and left Schuyler about 12:30. We reached York and stopped to check data. We decided York was a good location and waited for over an hour, watching bubbling cu as the boundary remained in place. I analyzed the intersection of another outflow boundary oriented from north to south which seemed to intersect the main line of cu around Hastings.
We watched the McCook storm rotate and hook on radar, and watched the storms to our north form as a line of linear multicell clusters along the cool front/wind shift. Later, these cells morphed into one of the first supercells to earn a tornado warning west of Omaha. Our area remained quiet as the cap eroded from west to east. We grew restless, and though our instinct was to remain in place, when activity fired to the east of the McCook supercell, we rolled west on Interstate 80. I thought it might be possible that the widespread anvil from the McCook storm and cluster might rob our target area of some instability. Also, this activity moved so quickly that it seemed possible they would overtake any storms firing in front of them.
Twenty minutes after we left York, the storm in Thayer County, over our original Hebron target, erupted and became severe as fast as any storm I’ve ever seen. We bolted south to Hastings then back east on State Road 6. We intended to flank the storm to the north, then cut in front of it using 81 or 15 southbound. However, as we gained on it rapidly, the storm split, and the northern core bulged out in front of us, blocking our path with golfball and baseball hail. At this point, my heart sank, knowing we would have to return west, then south, then race east to flank the storm from the southern side. It seemed almost no time before the phone rang and Doug Kiesling told me he heard reports of a wedge tornado north of Hebron.
By the time we reached 103, we’d turned the corner on the supercell and I drifted through the abandoned streets of De Witt while a mournful tornado siren blew across the quiet, windless village center. A large wall cloud hovered over the grain elevators as a few brave cornhuskers stood in their doorways and watched the lowering pass to the northeast. Earlier I'd observed a massive lowering twisted at the bottom in a strange configuration--this may have been a tornado on the ground, but didn't seem so at the time.
This storm produced mesocyclones on several sides, and as this wallcloud loomed over De Witt, another tornado tore through Wilbur. We continued skirting the southeast corner of this storm as the sun set, recording blockish wall clouds, funnels, and needle protrusions.
As for overall observations, Weathervine, Garry, and Travis detected part of the first wedge tornado as we sped toward the storm from behind. They also saw this tornado (or another) illuminated by lightning as a stovepipe. I believe I might have seen the former, not the latter, but cannot be certain.
Later, as many chasers gathered south of Beatrice, several of us observed a massive lowering to the northwest, later reported by law enforcement as a tornado on the ground. I’m not certain I saw this when it was touching down. Overall I don’t have a sense that I had a good look at any of these tornadoes. On a night when many people may be searching for family and friends, or just a place to sleep, it hardly matters.
Our thoughts are with the people in this corner of Nebraska tonight.
