Willoughby Owen
EF2
Wow. What a day.
Woke up in Goodland, KS and had to leave by 8am central time. For some reason two out of our three phones of the group didn't automatically switch to mountain time so we actually left an hour earlier than anticipated, slightly annoying one member of the group. That happens.
Target was southeast Wyoming with good pooling of moisture surging in with a couple of CAMs suggesting a supercell or two near KCYS by 00Z with the shortwave. Skip forward a few hours and long naps in the car, taking a weird route (not through Denver) but up back roads via Stirling and the I-80... we all crash on grass at the Chugwater interstate rest stop for a good hour pondering bad decisions in hindsight busting the previous two days in the Texas panhandle in 100-degree capped weather going shoe shopping in the end at the outlets at Lubbock.
Booming convection can be seen to our NW (southwest of Douglas) building over the mountains, but still only small cells relatively. Dew point at Wheatland was a very healthy 55 degrees, Torrington 58 with moderate easterlies. Temps about 68 at 2pm, LCLs would be good here.
So we drive north and turn off west at Glendo trying to get closer to this storm. In the end we get as high as a place called Esterbrook up a long gravel road with a pretty nice view. Further on and I think we'd be in forest. Couple of very decent CGs from this.
We watch this supercell with awesome uplifiting structure, noticed it had great appearance on velocity.
The Esterbrook ASOS was observing 74/55 which is pretty impressive for it's 6515 feet elevation.
So that died out as you can see so we headed back to Glendo, and noticed a few echoes developing by Medicine Bow, WY. Head back south on the I-25 and turn off southwest at Wheatland.
Very mountainous road and we lose all cell reception for a good 45 minutes. Last doppler image we got suggested the structure had to be better that what we saw up at Esterbrook.
So out of no where this awesome cell popped up in front of those severely-warned cells that were further northwest.
Saliva was building greatly when we saw this in the background of the mountains and canyons we were trying to get out of.
"Where's our freaking view and open country?!" we're yelling.
We finally get a view, albeit miles away still from the area of rotation. The Nebraskan farmers in front of us pull off too and watch what was unfolding:
Bosler supercell wraps up by Willoughby Owen, on Flickr
What happened next just blew our minds:
Moments away: Laramie Tornado by Willoughby Owen, on Flickr
Could have easily been late to the show but check out that structure!!!
Laramie Tornado by Willoughby Owen, on Flickr
Woke up in Goodland, KS and had to leave by 8am central time. For some reason two out of our three phones of the group didn't automatically switch to mountain time so we actually left an hour earlier than anticipated, slightly annoying one member of the group. That happens.
Target was southeast Wyoming with good pooling of moisture surging in with a couple of CAMs suggesting a supercell or two near KCYS by 00Z with the shortwave. Skip forward a few hours and long naps in the car, taking a weird route (not through Denver) but up back roads via Stirling and the I-80... we all crash on grass at the Chugwater interstate rest stop for a good hour pondering bad decisions in hindsight busting the previous two days in the Texas panhandle in 100-degree capped weather going shoe shopping in the end at the outlets at Lubbock.
Booming convection can be seen to our NW (southwest of Douglas) building over the mountains, but still only small cells relatively. Dew point at Wheatland was a very healthy 55 degrees, Torrington 58 with moderate easterlies. Temps about 68 at 2pm, LCLs would be good here.
So we drive north and turn off west at Glendo trying to get closer to this storm. In the end we get as high as a place called Esterbrook up a long gravel road with a pretty nice view. Further on and I think we'd be in forest. Couple of very decent CGs from this.
We watch this supercell with awesome uplifiting structure, noticed it had great appearance on velocity.
The Esterbrook ASOS was observing 74/55 which is pretty impressive for it's 6515 feet elevation.
So that died out as you can see so we headed back to Glendo, and noticed a few echoes developing by Medicine Bow, WY. Head back south on the I-25 and turn off southwest at Wheatland.
Very mountainous road and we lose all cell reception for a good 45 minutes. Last doppler image we got suggested the structure had to be better that what we saw up at Esterbrook.
So out of no where this awesome cell popped up in front of those severely-warned cells that were further northwest.
Saliva was building greatly when we saw this in the background of the mountains and canyons we were trying to get out of.
"Where's our freaking view and open country?!" we're yelling.
We finally get a view, albeit miles away still from the area of rotation. The Nebraskan farmers in front of us pull off too and watch what was unfolding:
Bosler supercell wraps up by Willoughby Owen, on FlickrWhat happened next just blew our minds:
Moments away: Laramie Tornado by Willoughby Owen, on FlickrCould have easily been late to the show but check out that structure!!!
Laramie Tornado by Willoughby Owen, on Flickr
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Laramie Tornado
Laramie WY Tornado
Twin tornadoes
Laramie tornado
Very long funnel cloud
Very long funnel cloud
