2018-05-17 REPORTS: SD/NE/CO/KS/TX/OK

[Quincy Vagell]

I started the day in Pueblo, CO to keep two targets within range, but quickly decided that I would favor southeastern Colorado/southwestern Kansas due to better moisture than up north and hints of a residual boundary, reinforced from early day convection.

The first storm popped up relatively early in the afternoon southwest of Lamar. I didn't stay with the storm long, as it was struggling and downstream dew-points only in the low to mid-50s in southeastern Colorado led me to believe the storm would probably not intensify much.

I drifted east into Kansas and decided to take a shot at convection over Texas County, OK, in the central portion of the panhandle. The storms were rapidly developing within a narrow plume of moderate instability/favorable boundary layer moisture. I approached the storms and noted at least two different shear funnels, that were clearly not connected to the base of the storm. I was only able to get one somewhat visible photo of one from a distance:

One storm within a cluster of cells became dominant, just south of the Kansas border and this would be the storm I would target. It's also the storm with the shear funnel in the photo above. The cell had a solid updraft, but never really gained much rotation. There was a left split and it may be hard to make out in this panoramic photo, but a small updraft can be noted on the left, while the parent updraft encompasses most of the field of view.

That's about as interesting as the northern cell got. The main limiting factor appeared to be low-level wind shear, in my estimation. The moisture plume was also fairly narrow, as earlier convection over northwestern Oklahoma created a environment that was substantially more stable downwind of this storm, not giving it much room to work with.

I cruised into Guymon to get gas and noticed that a small storm in the distance showcased a little updraft, contrasted nicely with some mammatus. I wandered around a bit and went back to investigate the earlier storm, as it intermittently showed some modest signs of organization. To make a long story short, it never evolved into a robust supercell and it dissipated before sunset.

It was not the most thrilling storm chase, but having a few photo opportunities and being able to bail on one storm and still catch another storm to the southeast made it worthwhile.

 

[Todd Lemery]

Left Lincoln NE in the morning and drove to Sterling CO, arriving about 1:00. Chose the Northern target for better wind while sacrificing a little on the dew. The late arrival of better moisture didn’t help as we followed the storms from Fort Morgan CO North into Nebraska where it just became part of a long line. Got some 1 inch hail in Sidney Nebraska as darkness fell with the storm never threatening to drop. No pics worth sharing, but the day might not be a waste as it might be laying a nice outflow boundary for tomorrow....

 

[Alex Elmore]

I currently am unable to load pictures, but will hopefully do so when I return home. Started the day in Sidney, NE and moved west to wait for storms to fire. I felt the better parameters were in NE Colorado near 00-01 UTC, but the cams weren’t particularly bullish with developing convection in that location, so I wanted to keep my options open to go north or stay in place where convection was more likely to develop. A couple storms fired around Cheyenne, but weren’t very organized and soon died. “Storms” fired in NE Colorado several hours later and congealed into a crappy mess. Moved south and then east toward Sterling, CO to give them time and space to maybe get its act together. They eventually organized into a line and produced a dramatic shelf. Stayed ahead of it as it moved NE and continued to display good structure. As the sun began to set, light was able to poke through the underside of the line on the southern edge, producing a very beautiful scene. The lightning at dusk was incredible. Eventually made my way back to Sidney were a pretty hefty storm was just passing to the north. It also produced some great lighting that I was able to capture. I’m not sure if it’s just been how 2018 has been going, but I was very happy with how this day went. The southern edge of the line was gorgeous.

 

[StephenHenry]

Finally put together some timelapses from this day. Like Quincy we started on the Lamar, CO cell before dropping to the OK Panhandle. We also observed some shear funnels, though slightly later than Quincy's. On timelapse we could confirm they were anticyclonic, as were most of the towers along the KS/OK border as we approached. Not a ton to show for this day, but always interesting being out there.

 

[Alex Elmore]

Better late than never, right? Here are the images I promised over two months ago. That, and I'd like to point out that I hate myself for misspelling lightning as "lighting" in my first post.

Here's when the storm began looking ok in NE Colorado:


Kept following it into extreme NE Colorado where it got pretty crazy looking:


We eventually ended up in the NE Panhandle near sunset, where it put on a decent display of lightning and color as it mixed with the setting sun:


After shooting lightning from this cell for some time, we headed back to Sidney for the night where additional convection was ongoing just to the west of town:


A more detailed account and additional footage can be found on my page: www.thunderheadscenicphotography.com/may-17-2018-log.html