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Crazy HP supercell roaming across southeast Nebraska. My video above is just southeast of Cordova. There are what I believe to be power flashes on the right side of what looks to be a huge meso scraping the ground between 40-50 seconds. RFD winds at the end of the video almost knocked me over.
I witnessed two tornadoes with the storm near Beaver Crossing, Nebraska on Sunday. This was a very difficult chase that required being in the notch of the storm in order to see most of the tornadoes. Here is my full chase account with images and video:
Chased the HP Beast in Nebraska with my mother for mothers day. Our satellite feed went to crap about the time we encountered the beast, and no phone signals, so without radar, or decent mapping working we didn`t risk playing the notch. Saw some real intense motion into rain shafts that obscured our view most of the chase. Did manage to get what appears to be 2 pictures of a cone north of I-80 and west of Lincoln but too hard to tell for sure.
Jenn Brindley Ubl, Victor Gensini and I hopped on the cyclical HP "hook shedder" in southeast Nebraska. We got into the notch near Clay Center expecting a mainly elevated supercell as we could see it was north of the boundary per base reflectivity. That storm didn't care though. It just reached down grabbed that boundary and sucked it right in. We were greeted by a huge backlit bowl of a lowering near Clay Center on highway 6, scraping the ground with what looked like plumes of RFD outflow:
Within moments we saw several subvortices kicking up underneath, what appeared to be a developing wedge tornado:
That's a telephoto/crop and we were further than this appears, but we didn't have much of a sense of scale due to the stark contrast and proportions of this storm, so we decided to get out of the notch here. We escaped east away from the developing tornado as we we had a nice paved east highway and were still ahead of the circulation to the east. The tornado did not appear to fully condense though, most likely maintaining a dusty circulation underneath the ground scraping lowering. I suspect this is due to the storm's position immediately north of the boundary, and while it was ingesting and interacting with that boundary, it didn't appear to firmly root to it or the warm sector air south of it.
Then the stair stepping began, east and north, north and east. The RFD surged forward so east and east, and then the hook occluded and careened to the left, so north and north. On the leading edge of the RFD gust front we saw a very tightly spinning gustnado, or what appeared to be one initially, but then we encountered strong vertical updraft winds as the horseshoe base approached and the gustnado was similarly stretched up into the base. It seemed like some sort of hybrid gustspout supercell tornado. I still think it was mainly gustnado, but it was interesting to see the interaction with the updraft:
East and north and we were able to safely get into the notch once more without getting slammed by the huge RFD circulation/rain wrapped tornado that smacked several chasers. Northwest of this area of interest we had a cone tornado rapidly condense. It seemed to be moving around the outer edge of the bear's cage/meso. We suspected this was actually a satellite and the main tornado was a much larger, broader circulation embedded within the rain shrouded bear's cage to the left:
Getting into the notch safely for any sort of high contrast view seemed unlikely afterwards so we backed off a bit for more of the structure view. We found a perch on a hill in a subdivision on the west side of Lincoln. Amazing shot by Jenn looking north at the RFD core and leading edge lowering:
A few notes about the storm itself. I don't think I've chased anything quite like it. The storm seemed to be breathing, like it was alive. The hook would reach out for that boundary and the storm would take a deep inhaling breath, impressive inflow screaming into that storm. It would pause at the top of the breath with an eerie calm. Then it would let go a huge exhaling breath, and that RFD gust front would surge forward at impressive speeds before getting pulled left into the forward flank during occlusion, and then the process repeated. The storm seemed to control the environment around it, instead of the other way around like it usually seems to be. It wielded the boundary to its will. We felt dramatic shifts in temperature and wind as the boundary rippled north and south with each cycle. Ultimately, storm mode seemed to be the downfall of this chase in terms of visibility. A huge HP cycling just north of the warm front, and you just had a monster teetering between periods of elevated outflow and big rain wrapped tornadoes. Perhaps if that had been stuck on the boundary or rooted to warm sector inflow we would have had a much more classic wedge producing supercell. Instead we had a dangerous rain wrapped beast, not unlike El Reno, that put any chaser in danger that was foolish enough to cross the Bear's Cage.
I had an excellent chase in the area from about Dodge City up through Larned, KS. Although the night before the models were giving me serious doubt whether storms would initiate anywhere on the dryline (and it was not an option for me to go all the way up to NE), by morning the HRRR and RAP were indicating the likelihood of storms along the dryline down about as far as the KS/OK state line, and a little farther west than where the dryline had earlier been progged, now somewhere around DDC. So I headed that way, and right as I got in range, storms fired west and SW of DDC around 1:45. I was on them within an hour, and for around 6 hours until they lined out when the cold front caught up to the dryline, I enjoyed supercell after supercell. I was on about a half dozen all told, some of which eventually merged, and was treated to great storm structure, a funnel cloud about halfway to the ground southwest of Garfield, and, on a different circulation shortly later, at least the remnants of the tornado that touched down between Garfield and Frizell.
Due to time constraints and issues with changeover to a new laptop, it will take me a few days at least to get a full report done, but in the meantime here are a couple of video captures:
Above is the funnel southwest of Garfield, taken from about 4 or 5 miles south of there looking NW.
This is the circulation - a different one from the one that produced the earlier funnel - that was associated with the tornado between Garfield and Frizell. By the time the tornado occurred, rain had wrapped around the meso and blocked my view of the tornado when it was initially reported, so I had to re-position. This is the tornadic circulation looking north from just SW of Larned, as the sirens in town blared. Not sure if it was still down at this point or not, but if not it was close. Eventually I will get video up of both the funnel and this circulation. This circulation dissipated a minute or so after this picture was taken.
Edit: after seeing pictures and video from other observers, and based on a newspaper report of damage to farm buildings in the approximate location where this is, I am now virtually certain that this was a tornado. Not sure if it was down the whole time from when it was first observed between Frizell and Garfield, or whether this was a separate touchdown. Definitely the same circulation, though.
I have some additional structure pics on my Facebook page and will eventually get them on my Web pages too, along with a full report and additional pictures and the video, and will link them from here when I do. Worked out fine I couldn't get to NE. Although they eventually got HP-ish, too, the Kansas storms were really photogenic and also came up with a few funnel clouds and tornadoes.
After really considering Nebraska, I ended up chasing Kansas due to having to be work Monday morning. I targeted Great Bend and after storms fired up early I headed west of Larned towards 183, stopping about half way to watch the cells coming to the north. After the first rolled by, I dropped to the south to catch the second cell and basically stair stepped my whole day between Great Bend and Larned. I eventually headed south out of Great Bend to catch the last cell of the day. I caught a funnel and a lot of great structure, and had an overall awesome day.
Funnel SW of Larned:
Wide angle and same funnel (smaller by this point):
Chased the home ground Sunday, started in my front yard in Dodge then to Bucklin, Greensburg, Kinsley and Offerle. On the way saw Big hail brief tornado a possible rain wrapped tornado, winds over 80 mph, plus 3.75" of rain at home. Here a few pictures, hope to have short time lapse of the wall cloud just before the tornado near Kinsley.
Here is Short time lapse by my son Chris ONeal of storms on the 11th at end is wall cloud it is short clip of wall cloud because we had to move, it put down brief tornado where we had been.http://vimeo.com/95613394
I started my day in Syracuse, NE so I met the Nebraska supercell at Exeter. Sitting in the inflow, the sound above me was incredible, a howling, shrieking, roaring, whistling all at once. The sound translated to video alright but doesn't do it justice. It's hard to see what's going on under the storm here, I know there was confirmed touchdowns near Exeter but its just to murky to tell. I moved east to just south of Milford and let the storm come to me, a very broad lowering does show itself for a very short time before descending back into the rain. Easily the most intense storm in my short chasing career thus far.
Also here is my GoPro footage from this chase, really shows the monstrous appetite this thing had:
I also chased the SE Nebraska HP supercell. By early afternoon I was at my initial target of the intersection of U.S. 77 and NE-41, just south of Cortland. After chatting a bit with Ryan McGinnis and Zach Roberts, I headed west on NE-41 toward the cell that had fired near Red Cloud. This was much further west than I had hoped, and like some of the other reports above, I too worried that the storm would end up tracking just NW of the front. I had a good 75 miles to go, so I stayed on NE-41, headed north on NE-15, and then finally west again on U.S. 6. By this time the storm had become SVR-warned and was wrapping up nicely. The first tornado reports popped up on SpotterNetwork around 3:50 p.m. near Clay Center, at which point I was between Sutton and Grafton on U.S. 6. After I arrived in Sutton a few minutes later, I got spooked and bolted back east on U.S. 6, thinking that I would make a play on the storm at Grafton. That still didn't feel safe, so I moved an additional two miles east on U.S. 6 and shot some inconclusive stills and video.
By about 4:25 p.m. the storm's large hook was over Grafton, with a pronounced inflow notch just to the north that was moving NE toward McCool Junction. Having neither the skills nor the fortitude to hook slice, I headed back east on U.S. 6 and then turned north on U.S. 81 at Fairmont. After about a mile I abandoned that plan, did a U-turn, and headed back south on U.S 81. Just before the exit for U.S. 6, I got slammed by RFD winds, which instantly plastered the passenger side windows of my car with mud and straw. Just ahead of me the top half of a grain bin west of the road was sheared off and landed in the middle of the two southbound lanes, which I captured on dashcam:
I then headed east on U.S. 6 through Fairmont and Exeter, getting battered by the storm's strong RFD. Around 5:00 p.m. I shot the following feature from U.S. 6 between Exeter and Friend, but given that the main circulation was at this point much further to the northeast between Cordova and Beaver Crossing, I'm reluctant to say that it was a tornado. The view here is to the north:
I also saw a brief but impressive spin-up in a field just to the south of U.S. 6 before reaching Friend. I then continued trailing the storm on U.S. 6, which eventually jogged north toward Milford. Just before reaching Milford, I saw this impressive scud bomb - which soon dissolved - off to the NW:
After moving through town, I hopped on I-80 and went east. The storm had by now produced again near Seward, but was beginning to look more junky on radar. Still, I headed through Lincoln, stopping at a weigh station east of Waverly to take a few pictures of the cell as it continued to track NE toward Omaha and the Iowa border. Here's a video grab of the storm's gust front illuminated by lightning. The view is to the north.
About this time a cell further down the line to the southwest became TOR-warned (and apparently did produce a tornado between Daykin and Swanton). I exited I-80 and stair-stepped south and west on NE-68, U.S. 34, NE-43, and NE-2 in a half-hearted attempt to catch this storm, but it had lined out by the time I have a view of it just north of Bennet. This looks southwest:
I then called it a day, stopping in Nebraska City for the night.
Chased the super cell from Fairmont to Milford. Never got a clear view due to the rain and positioning. As I approached Milford I found out my girlfriend's family farm near Beaver Crossing had been hit and broke off the chase to go help them however I could.
I have a decent hook on my screen in the attached pic. I was parked near Beaver Crossing and had great visibility, but ultimately went North to camp out by I-80. I hung out there for about 5 minutes with good visibility but that didn't last long. On a related note, this was one of the most UNphotogenic storms I have been on in a long time. Dark and diffused.
Would have been nice if this supercell was ever classic in appearance, but i doubt any chasers targeting Nebraska that day were expecting classic structure. I was basically due east of the storm my entire chase and at one point right as it was entering the Cordova area it had a big RFD cut and cleared just enough rain out that you could see the meso scraping the ground. It was unreal. RFD caused power flashes in my video between 40-50 seconds. I was never really comfortable going north into the notch because I didn't see many east options if I needed to bail, and this was a very intimidating storm on radar and being so HP.
Much like a large percentage of the chaser world, I was near the supercell that produced the tornado near Sutton and tracked north of Lincoln on Mother's day.
I waited west of Beatrice for a few hours to see what formed near the warm front, along with the rest. When the cell fired over Hastings, it seemed to want to stay too far north of the front for a few minutes, making me hesitate. But after a short while it tried to reach out to the boundary, so I took off for it.
Caught up with the south end of the gust front west of Geneva, and watched(hoped) it attempt a second circulation more in the warm sector without rain wrapping. After not seeing enough lift, I ventured toward the main RFD cut of the mature meso near Grafton.
Immediately I saw that it was one of those wet, screaming RFDs, and again I wanted no part of it. So, realizing it was staying HP and knowing I was on my own, I tried to stay East Southeast of the RFD shelf and watch for moments of relatively less rain in the outflow, or gustfront spinups/reorganizations. All In all, I didn't see anything I can say for sure is a tornado, but it was a pretty good storm to watch, as HP beasts go. As some others have said, when the RFD opened up a bit you could sometimes see the slanted downward east pointing meso scrape. In my video, the best I see of that is about 2:10 to 2:17. It was somewhere between Grafton and Friend I think.
We were also torn between Nebraska and Kansas and at the last minute decided on central KS. My son and I + my stepbrother (his maiden chase voyage) chased for a full 5 hours into dark. We cell hopped and barely had to move an inch to catch four beauties in a row. Saw brief touchdown s/w of Larned, met local spotters, saw barely a chaser, witnessed extraordinary anvil crawling and amazing storm structure. The tail end charlie cell looked beastly and moved fast. Twas' a thing of beauty. There seemed to be a real sweet spot when the LLJ kicked in. Photos all shot by Matthew Linnell.
After witnessing the continued decrease of involvement in the SpotterNetwork staff in serving SN members with troubleshooting issues recently, I have unilaterally decided to terminate the relationship between SpotterNetwork's support and Stormtrack. I have witnessed multiple users unable to receive support weeks after initiating help threads on the forum. I find this lack of response from SpotterNetwork officials disappointing and a failure to hold up their end of the agreement that was made years ago, before I took over management of this site. In my opinion, having Stormtrack users sit and wait for so long to receive help on SpotterNetwork issues on the Stormtrack forums reflects poorly not only on SpotterNetwork, but on Stormtrack and (by association) me as well. Since the issue has not been satisfactorily addressed, I no longer wish for the Stormtrack forum to be associated with SpotterNetwork.
I apologize to those who continue to have issues with the service and continue to see their issues left unaddressed. Please understand that the connection between ST and SN was put in place long before I had any say over it. But now that I am the "captain of this ship," it is within my right (nay, duty) to make adjustments as I see necessary. Ending this relationship is such an adjustment.
For those who continue to need help, I recommend navigating a web browswer to SpotterNetwork's About page, and seeking the individuals listed on that page for all further inquiries about SpotterNetwork.
From this moment forward, the SpotterNetwork sub-forum has been hidden/deleted and there will be no assurance that any SpotterNetwork issues brought up in any of Stormtrack's other sub-forums will be addressed. Do not rely on Stormtrack for help with SpotterNetwork issues.
Sincerely,
Jeff D.
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