10/13/07 REPORTS: CO, KS, NE, OK, TX

[Tony Laubach]

So we took the fork out of the day we considered done before it began... storms fired near Castle Rock and drifted northeast grabbing the attention of most Denver-based chasers. I was out making the purchase of my new Nikkor 18-200mm VR lens when my phone exploded with calls and texts as the storms were showing TVS and meso signatures early in their life. The storms never amounted to much as they weakened as they headed towards I-70. I left Lakewood for I-25 and bounced south to E-470 where I elected to take the easy storm moving up along E-470. I got in behind it and flew into the core about E-470 between Smokey Hill and Quincy getting hammered with a ton of hail up to penny-sized which covered the roads and made for some interesting driving. I followed the core to I-76 and returned south to intercept more storms. I eventually ended up on I-70 in Bennett before calling it a successful local day.

More on my blog, and more coming in a later chase log...

 

[Mark Farnik]

Early on today, I was extremely excited for cold core possibilities in eastern CO/western KS. Even though it was misting heavily at the farm when I left around 1:00 p.m, I had seen the cloud cover beginning to erode in southeastern CO/southwestern KS and figured that it would continue to erode northward and provide adequate heating to initiate convection. I picked up Carey Walton in Fort Morgan and we wound up waiting for the 2000z outlook... which pretty much crushed all hope of a decent cold core day. Nonetheless, we decided to take a chance that something exciting might form ahead of the secondary surface low in northeastern NM/southeastern CO, so we hit the road shortly after 2 p.m. We hopped on I-76 to Brush, then headed south on Highway 71 to Limon. As we dropped southeast on 287 through Hugo and Kit Carson, the low clouds dissolved into bright blue skies and a stiff easterly upslope flow began. Ever hopefuly, we continued on south to Eads and parked in the lot of the Econo Lodge and looked around. We saw plenty of stratiform cumulus/stratus all around, but nothing that looked even remotely convective, and the clear section of the sky remained just that; clear. We decided to call the chase off and headed back to Brush, where we had a rather sh**ty meal at the Pizza Hut, which was an appropriate finish to this disappointing chase. I then dropped Carey off at his place and walked in the door only a few minutes prior to the writing of this post.
Oh well, Carey and I enjoyed excellent conversation the entire trip and got to take a leisurely scenic drive through east central Colorado, which admittedly is rather pretty in the fall, paticularly in and around the creek bottoms where the cottonwood groves turn to spectacular golden yellows.
Total Chase Mileage: 380 miles

 

[Michael O'Keeffe]

Just got back from chasing two incredible supercells west of Dodge City. I witnessed one of the best lightning shows of my life and I captured it all on video (will be posted later). The first cell was an awesome LP barberpole near Ensign, KS, and the second was a high-based mothership supercell complete with CG chaos near Cimarron, KS. We also captured a large grass fire that was started by lightning. We are now at the Super 8 in Dodge City. A good night chase to say the least.

 

[Michael O'Keeffe]

Here is a video of the large fire we saw last night near Cimarron, KS as a result of lightning.

Check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfB8la4k3cQ

 

[Michael Carlson]

My Dad and I chased Eastern Colorado yesterday and got some pea size hail and some cool storm structure. This was my first time editing my photos down to a low quality for internet use thats why they look the way they do.

More Photo's Here

 

[edward oneal]

A short chase Saturday night to try my sons new Sony camera. Went after storms that formed over Dodge City and then moved north. He got a few lightning shots before the storms raced off to the north at 60 mph http://spotted.dodgeglobe.com/pages/gallery.php?gallery=318768

 

[Tony Laubach]

I have posted my chase log for Saturday here.

I have also launched a new gallery feature which will be included with future chasing logs. I am testing this out to see how it does and to get some input. While chases like this won't usually include a gallery unless unusually photogenic, I wanted to throw this one up as a test. Its linked on the chase log page, on my chase log list, or you can cheat and view it here.