2011-06-19 REPORTS: KS/MO/IL/NE/CO

[Dan Robinson]

I witnessed a great lightning show with the severe MCS that rolled through the St. Louis metro early Sunday morning. Stills and video here:

http://stormhighway.com/blog2011/june1911a.shtml

 

[Andy Jackson]

Nebraska Supercells

I started out the day thinking the best setup would be south of the I-80 a little more towards SW NE, but was hesitant in case stuff started happening in the higher 0-1km EHI areas in the SE. I ended up driving into a nice cu field around McCook, NE and soon after initiation began. The first storm started rotating but was getting interference from the one behind it, the one after that ended up being the main storm. Amazing structure East of McCook, NE. This is a day I really needed a good wide angle lens. Whatever tornadoes did occur I missed them but oh well. I had many opportunities all afternoon to see tornadoes but non dropped. Good chase day, on to the next.
Here's three images:

 

[Jim Saueressig]

This started out as a fixing the truck and had to drive to Emporia to get parts day. I noticed the towers trying to go up a long ways WNW of Emporia and decided I wanted to do a blind chase day rather than get back to the truck repairs.

I kept seeing the towers get blown off and was getting to the point of "why bother" when I noticed that they were rebuilding. Still many miles out I noticed that the cell had a foot even if little precipitation yet. That was enough to keep me going NW, a bit later the foot fell apart and recycled and then I noticed that even the upper clouds seemed to hint of rotation. Numerous miles later I managed to get caught up with it still West of Herington for some awesome structure shots. The rotation was amazing.



Me being the structure fan I was heading out for better structure when it first produced so I had just left the action area and missed the better position for shots of the funnel. Supposedly this was the tornado but a hill would have kept me from seeing any ground rotation and though the condensation funnel did reach much farther than this shot though very thinly I didn't see contact so funnel it is.



This thing continued spinning like a top but it just couldn't stay alive. Even in it's death it had amazing structure.



But it finally lost the battle.



More photos of the progression of this beast on my Flickr


Blog with more pictures.

 

[Rick Schmidt]

Here are my views of the Morris County supercell. I saw several funnels, but no stills of them.

 

[Josh VandenTop]

Chased with Brent Koops, got on the storm near White City, Ks. Saw one brief tornado and some of the most amazing structure.

 

[Travis Wilson]

Received a wide angle lens for father's day. Used it on the northeastern storm, northeast of McCool, NE about 8pm.

 

[Adam Lucio]

Mods add NE to the thread please:

Chased some photogenic HP supercells near the CO/KS/NE borders and caught a tornado north of McCook, NE.

Full log with video is here: http://www.chicagoillinoisstormchaser.com/061911-McCook-Nebraska-Tonado.php

 

[Derek Weston]

Saw some beautiful supercells in Colorado and Nebraska. No tornadoes as we bailed on our original target of SW Neb into Colorado to play the storms heading our way.

Chased 4 tornado warned sups in all... but none of them would get it done. (was never impressed with low level shear)

Pictures are of a beast we encountered in Colorado and then of the western-most sup in Nebraska.

Stayed in Arapahoe Nebraska for the night and were awoken by tornado sirens at 2am as a bow-ish looking supercell with a decent couplet plowed into town. (couplet seemed to stay just north of the city, thankfully)

 

[Winston Wells]

I arrived at my original target of McCook, NE in the early afternoon, but was immediately worried by the storms that had fired further west in northeastern Colorado. After a quick bite I reluctantly began to move west on US 6/34, but MCD #1299 drew me back east. I overdid it, though, ending up in Arapahoe, NE as convection began over Dundy county in the extreme southwestern corner of the state. I blasted the 40 miles back west to McCook, ultimately intercepting the more northeastern of two approaching supercells at the intersection of US 6 and NE 25. Here's a shot of the storm's wall cloud, which was evidently rotating. The view here is to the north.

I headed back east to McCook and then north a few miles on US 83. By this point the storm had become an HP mothership:

I then waited a bit at the intersection of US 83 and Red Willow Dam Road. Here are two photos and a short clip of a funnel cloud that appeared at 8 p.m. just to the northwest. This was about 15 minutes before the cell merged with the trailing storm that had earlier produced tornadoes near Benkelman and Max, NE.

I then headed back south with the horde of chasers through McCook and to the east on US 6/34, missing the brief tornado documented by Adam Lucio above. Although many chasers drove into the beast near Indianola, NE, I held back, opting instead to head back north of McCook on US 83 to check out the great lightning display of yet another cell:

At this point there were five discrete supercells situated in an arc just north of McCook! This was a long but fun chase day.

 

[John Keeton]

Was targeting McCook, NE for Sunday 6/19. Got to the target area just as the show was starting in sw NE. Was on the McCook storm for over an hour but never saw the reported tornado from the cell.

Saw some great mammatus:

and some great structures from the cell




After dark I saw around S of Cambridge, NE enjoying the lightning while waiting for a gap in the storms to head N towards I80




john

 

[Skip Talbot]

Chased with Adam Lucio, Jennifer Brindley, and Jonathan Williamson. We initially targeted NE CO for upslope supercell initiation, fearing that the east/west warmfront/dryline over southern NE might not initiate. We got on a gorgeous supercell as it crossed the CO/NE border south of Kimball, but the inflow was cold and the storm eventually transitioned outflow dominant with mainly forced, laminar structure. We abandoned the storm just as it gained its tornado warning and headed for a robust cumulus field that looked like it would initiate in a much more favorable environment across southwest NE/northern KS.

We intercepted a line of supercells just north of McCook, NE. The first storm in the line exhibited dramatic HP structure, but no tornadoes that we could make out:

We let the second storm approach which had a much more visible rain free base. It cycled a few wall clouds as it approached our position and finally spun up a small tornado. Instead of racing the circulation, we let it pass to our south and then hook sliced the storm for a bit until we dropped south of at dusk, hitting a huge convergence on highway 6.

It was great seeing Holcomb, Hurkes, Nolte, LB and his dad out on the chase too.

 

[Josh VandenTop]

finally got the video up from Sunday night.Watch video >

 

[Chris Allington]

Was on the supercells that initiated on the CO/KS/NE border area near Max, NE from when they were just cumulus. Watched the inital tornado near Max, NE:

Tornado:

Too bad the developing squall line had to cut into this storm just as it was going insane east of McCook:

The icing on the cake was the crazy, lightning-lit structure near Alma and Franklin, NE. The closest thing I can find to describe this too would be an atom bomb:

One more, what a great chase day!

 

[Scott Nicholson]

This is long overdue... I've (finally) converted and made available tornado/storm chasing videos from years past and posted them on the Videos page on my website at www.springwx.com. There are several videos available for viewing...and I'm adding more as I find archived storm chase videos in my collection.

The video available for this date is titled McCook, NE Tornado:
On June 19, 2011, we chased in southwest Nebraska. After chasing a well defined wall cloud, we jumped to a storm farther east. While sitting approximately 5 miles due north of McCook, NE, we witnessed a brief, weak tornado.