Quincy Vagell
EF4
I decided to target the western portion of Nebraska today, in hopes that storms could tap into a relatively moist axis near/north of I-80, as we have not had dew-points get into the mid-50s or higher in the High Plains too many times this year. In order to minimize driving, I ruled out the farther north (for a while I was eyeing South Dakota) and south targets, but I'm looking forward to an array of posts in here, especially any y'all might have from New Mexico...
One storm in particular in far northeastern Colorado got my attention and I zeroed in. For a short time, the storm had a well-defined base with weak rotation, but it was high-based and seemed to show varying amounts of organization. Another cell popped up just to its east and interestingly enough, the two storms almost criss-crossed paths. Steering currents were a bit ill-defined, as outflow boundaries seemed to come into play. Overall, storms moved from south to north early on, but these cells seemed to vary from NNE to ENE movement.
The first photo opportunities came in a field south of Lodgepole, NE, where some horses took a fancy to either me or my vehicle. At one point, a bunch of them came up to the fence and were looking in the direction of my car... Anyway, even though the storm wasn't particularly well-organized, it's always a positive if I can get a solid photograph or two.
The two storms mentioned more or less congealed into a cluster that showed transient supercellular characteristics. I followed the northern portion of the storm into Oshkosh and drove into quite a bit of hail on NE-27. The road was slushy and despite intense radar returns, most of the hail was sub-severe, but there were copious amounts of it. I came up to Oshkosh Country Club and noticed that the fairways and greens were covered in a layer of hail. Although it's not perfect, my car's thermometer is reasonably reliable and it pegged a low temperature of 46F during the peak of the hail. It was so chilly that I didn't even want to spend much time outside of the car.
The chase continued on with this storm, but I decided to back away a bit to try to get more structure photos. I was a bit too close to grab the whole structure of the storm, as some chasers did from Ogallala/Big Springs, but near Lewellen, I was able to catch a pronounced hail core with the storm.
The storm continued on, but it was far from a classic supercell (the tornado threat was close to zero) and after drifting farther and farther away from the hotel (I booked early, knowing that with many chasers in the Ogallala area, I did not want to be too late), I called off the chase. The storm intensified right around 02z and was probably dropping very large hail in the vicinity of Arthur, but I was more intrigued at the prospect of catching a sunset over Lake McConaughy. I've ended up in that area several times already this spring, but not at sunset yet. I snapped off one final photo before calling it a night.
One storm in particular in far northeastern Colorado got my attention and I zeroed in. For a short time, the storm had a well-defined base with weak rotation, but it was high-based and seemed to show varying amounts of organization. Another cell popped up just to its east and interestingly enough, the two storms almost criss-crossed paths. Steering currents were a bit ill-defined, as outflow boundaries seemed to come into play. Overall, storms moved from south to north early on, but these cells seemed to vary from NNE to ENE movement.
The first photo opportunities came in a field south of Lodgepole, NE, where some horses took a fancy to either me or my vehicle. At one point, a bunch of them came up to the fence and were looking in the direction of my car... Anyway, even though the storm wasn't particularly well-organized, it's always a positive if I can get a solid photograph or two.
The two storms mentioned more or less congealed into a cluster that showed transient supercellular characteristics. I followed the northern portion of the storm into Oshkosh and drove into quite a bit of hail on NE-27. The road was slushy and despite intense radar returns, most of the hail was sub-severe, but there were copious amounts of it. I came up to Oshkosh Country Club and noticed that the fairways and greens were covered in a layer of hail. Although it's not perfect, my car's thermometer is reasonably reliable and it pegged a low temperature of 46F during the peak of the hail. It was so chilly that I didn't even want to spend much time outside of the car.
The chase continued on with this storm, but I decided to back away a bit to try to get more structure photos. I was a bit too close to grab the whole structure of the storm, as some chasers did from Ogallala/Big Springs, but near Lewellen, I was able to catch a pronounced hail core with the storm.
The storm continued on, but it was far from a classic supercell (the tornado threat was close to zero) and after drifting farther and farther away from the hotel (I booked early, knowing that with many chasers in the Ogallala area, I did not want to be too late), I called off the chase. The storm intensified right around 02z and was probably dropping very large hail in the vicinity of Arthur, but I was more intrigued at the prospect of catching a sunset over Lake McConaughy. I've ended up in that area several times already this spring, but not at sunset yet. I snapped off one final photo before calling it a night.
