2013-04-08 REPORTS: CO/KS/NE

[Marcus Diaz]

My initial target was Cheyenne Wells, CO for some evening supercells. We sat in town to watch a wave of CU build while on storm was on-going to our NE. After watching the towers continually backbuild on that storm, we made a dash for it. A few minutes later it went SVR warned south of Stratton. Once we got due south the storm looked great and healthy, but high based. We followed the storm to the KS state line before diving south to get structure shots. No sooner than that reports of a weak and brief tornado came in. FIGURES...................................................

First shot is from south of Stratton, looking at the towers explode. Second is from northeast of Burlington, right before it produced.

 

[Scott Nicholson]

After leaving Omaha around 9am, I made my way to Colorado...west of Burlington, CO...to just south of Bethune, CO...where I sat watching the storms off to my west and southwest. After an hour or so...I followed the southern-most storm north, encountering pea-sized hail for 5+ minutes a couple miles north of Bethune. With east-west roads lacking in eastern CO, I decided to drive around the storm, running north to Hwy 36, then east where I sat watching the storm on the CO/KS border. The storm looked much more impressive visually than on radar with a nice low to midlevel inflow band...and some decent structure. There was quite a bit of dust being kicked up by the strong inflow...which eventually was sucked up into the storm. Then, I noticed the swirl on the ground beneath a small lowering...as captured on my video at:

http://youtu.be/61HDAnEFFZw

or

http://www.springwx.com/mediaVideoLibrary.php

Long drive from Omaha...to CO...and back to Omaha for a brief landspout...but it was nice to kick off the chase season with some success...in addition to testing the equipment. Here are a couple photos/highlights from the trip. Enjoy!

 

[ericjkelly]

Finally got out for my first chase since moving from Indiana to Colorado! I played the "hurry up and wait" game in Burlington trying to avoid the TIV (didnt want to seem like I am following them...i got those looks!). Finally decided to jump on the cell to my west and chased it back towards Burlington. A few landspout reports, that I may or may not have on film but did have a really good shot at the cell as it tried to develop. Here is a GOPRO video shot at 8x. Pretty cool slow rotation! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYu1Emd0Xdk&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYu1Emd0Xdk&feature=youtu.beWatch video >

 

[Rob H]

On the Burlington, CO cell like many others. Watched it split and form new updrafts outside of Burlington, and once it seemed like the new cell was doing well, we decided to get under the meso. After nearly an hour of 30-35 mph Kestrel-measured inflow in 49 degree dewpoints, the lowering really tightened up and produced at a brief tornado. I'm not sure why people are calling this a landspout, because we saw the back of the persistent, rotating updraft several minutes before the attached lowering had the tornado under it.

I'll buy the first person to prove to my satisfaction that it was a landspout a Chipotle burrito *and* a bag of chips

Watch video >

 

[Sean Ramsey]

Also on the Burlington cell, watched it pretty much from initiation then let it go thinking there might be something behind it better. After it was apparent it would be pretty much the only cell to the east to generate I went after it. Didn't see anything tornadic, but the structure was top notch and ran into some decent hail just west of St. Francis, KS.

 

[Albert Rodriguez]

After busting on Sunday I figured Monday would be a different story. Well not so much. After getting some advice from Amos in the morning (Burlington target), I headed to the Colorado border. Once again I lost signal in Colorado after crossing the border. My plan was to stay south where the higher dews were located. I had agitated cu just west of Granada but nothing materialized. Since I had no internet and blue skies to my south, I decided to hop back into Kansas (signal) where I eventually called off the chase and headed back to Wichita. In hindsight I should have departed Wichita earlier and committed to the northern target area.

 

[STexan]

FYI, I use a booster ... I roamed up to 30 miles S and N of 70 in NE Colorado off the paved roads while I was scouting and waiting and my Verizon MiFi dropped out at some point, and I booted up my ATT phone and shared off of that and it got me by I recall maybe a few updates that didn't come in in a timely manner, otherwise it worked in areas where my Verizon was struggling. But I highly recommend an ATT device for backup to a Verizon device if you have the means and want to chase in the more remote areas in KS/CO and even some areas of OK.

 

[Adam Adkins]

I left from Fort Collins and went to Akron. There I watched a lot of high based stuff go up but most of it really sucked. Then I saw the Burlington storm go up on radar and that looked good, but another storm that was about equal to it developed south of Yuma and I followed that for a bit (first 3 photos). That storm struggled to get too organized so I left for more convection developing further west. Between Akron and Fort Morgan I saw a more intense organized storm develop to the southwest. It became very impressive in radar and went tornado warned - after dark. So no photos there. That was probably the best storm in the state. Too bad we couldn't see it! So here are some unedited photos from the first chase of 2013!


Also, I don't know why I can never get the pictures to display on this site at the size I adjust them to.

 

[Shawn Schuman]

One way to display photos at full size (assuming that's what you mean?) is to upload them to an image host first. I recommend www.imgur.com but there are plenty of others as well. Just use the upload function (top right corner) and then copy the link under "Direct Link." Come back here, click insert image as you usually would, but then click 'From URL' and paste your link there. It's a little bit of a hassle, but it works quite well.

 

[Skip Talbot]

Targeted northeast Colorado, Jenn Brindley Ubl and I were caravanning with the Casey's/TIV as a support vehicle. Waited in Burlington, CO until the upslope cells matured a bit, before moving in for some structure shots. We were time lapsing structure during the brief spout, so didn't get a glimpse of it, but we are happy with the structure shots we got instead. We moved in closer just before dusk and core punched from the west encountering a deafening barrage of 1.5 inch hail before letting the storm go at dark. A fun chase and our most photogenic of our Plains run.

Watch video >

 

[Hank Schyma]

Here's The Tornado...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llssEYl8xns
Watch video >

 

[Skip Talbot]

Compiled a detailed log with photos, video, stats and annotated map:
http://www.skip.cc/chase/130408

I had way too much fun making this and hopefully you guys get a kick out of it too. In the fashion of my Storm Lapse videos, this is a day chasing with the TIV, synced to music by Kevin MacLeod:

Watch video >

 

[StephenHenry]

I love seeing all the different angles of this storm. Hank, it looks like we weren't too far from each other (we were a tad more west, I was scared to get too far out on the dirt roads). And Skip I love the editing of your video. I tend to have just as much fun editing as I do chasing. Here's my footage from the day (there's a bit of video from the 7th mixed in as well, I hope that's OK).
Watch video >

 

[J Allen]

Decided on this day to play on the corridor south of Sharon springs and watch what happened along the dryline. I really was feeling somewhat 50/50, hoping that something would make it up through the cap further south to enjoy the rather favourable parameters that could be found there, and with models breaking out precipitation occasionally, thought it was worth the risk to hold just a bit longer. Decided after persistent loss of hope in the HRRR that our best option was the Burlington cell, and got onto it reasonable fashion just east of the Colorado border. Given the relatively high base and LP characteristics, decided it would be best to stay out in the slot for structure photography, and was well rewarded for my trouble. Girlfriend got to enjoy her second day of nice structure in her first trip to the plains, so that was really nice too.

#1 - On the Border

#2 - Border Beauty

#3 - Mesocyclonic Serenity

All in all, pretty happy with the days chasing, not disappointed to have missed the weak vortex - happy to trade that sort of thing for structure like that. More photos can be found at www.facebook.com/HuntersofThunder

 

[cdcollura]

Good day all,

I finally got around to doing a complete chase log for today (4/8) as well as 4/7 and 4/9.

This can be seen at the link here: http://www.sky-chaser.com/mwcl2013.htm#APR6

Above: The annotated diagram above shows both the visible satellite image (left) over the western Kansas / eastern Colorado region and radar image (base reflectivity) from NE Colorado at roughly 5:30 PM MDT on April 8, 2013. The left diagram shows some very important features that can make (or break) a storm chase day. The important feature is the developing surface low in Colorado with an attendant dryline segment / confluence axis extending towards the east into NE Colorado. A warm front is slowly pushing north towards the CO / NE "corners" region and extends eastward. The moisture axis is pushing into western Kansas and its edge has reached NE Colorado where a very strong capping (convective inhibition) has been overcome by the upslope wind flow as well as the leading edge of a strong upper level disturbance. The dotted line is the 5 deg C isotherm (at 700 MB) and south of that the cap is so strong there are not even clouds in some areas. The boundary layer remains poorly mixed to the east, away from the upper air dynamics (note the HCR's - Horizontal Convective Rolls)! The main supercell of the day (in the radar image to the right) developed near Burlington and near I-70 and Highway 385. The storm produced a small landspout tornado, and then continued northeast into Kansas, and eventually Nebraska. Weakening while in Kansas, the storm intensified rapidly into Nebraska, as it reached better moisture and the Pacific trough arrived aloft, producing a damaging tornado after dark. All the while, a developing winter storm was well underway to the northwest.

Above: The Burlington, Colorado storm from near Highway 385 and north of I-70.

Above: The small landspout the Burlington supercell produced.