1999-06-04: Nebraska Sand Hills Tornadic Supercell

[Sam Barricklow]

June 4, 1999 - I ran across Al Moller, Mike Foster and John Monteverdi in northern Kansas earlier in the day, and drove across southern Nebraska expecting storms to form farther west. One did form in northeastern Colorado, and moved NNE into the Sand Hills of Nebraska. At first, the storm was poorly organized and didn't appear to be capable of much. Al, Mike and John, apparently frustrated after a long drive to only see an apparently weak storm, stopped on the interstate for supper, but I decided to stay in pursuit of the storm. As it moved north of the Interstate and into strong, gusty east-southeasterly moist inflow, the storm exploded, eventually producing at least six tornadoes after sunset, accompanied by awesome storm structure, and continuous lightning.

During the evening, I passed Howie Bluestein's crew, briefly visited with Gene Rhoden at one stop along the highway and later passed the VORTEX armada. Here's a freshly reworked image of the storm structure that was shot when the storm was south of Thedford.

http://www.k5kj.net/19990604bw.htm

More images are at:

http://www.k5kj.net/990604.htm

 

[cedwards]

I will have to go back and look at my video. maybe enhance it some. I had the same view of the storm, but ran out of road options as our road suddenly turned into loose sand with no alternative.
It was a very long chase aswe started out in AMA. Or original target for the day was NW KS. I had reserved our rooms for the night in Hays and it turned out I couldn't cancel them, so we had to go all the way back south for a few hours rest before going back to NE for more tornadoes on the 5th.