3/21/07 Reports: NE/IA/KS/OK/TX

[bbarjenbruch]

Ended up going North of Lincoln toward Wahoo on US77 as the first storm became SVR warned for Butler and Saunders county. We arrived with good timing to the ESE of the rain free base and watched it come at us. Eventually saw a pretty impressive uplift of scud from the surface and a lowering of the base. It eventually came together tighter, and actually began to exhibit some pretty solid rotation. Too bad it was so darned high based. An RFD even made a pretty nice little cut into the back of it. No further developement though.

Eventually, it appeared to occlude out and a new meso developed to the south. We maintained our position ESE of the updraft, gradually sliding to our East toward the Platte river. Although the second meso eventually organized itself together, it never did exhibit any impressive rotation. The cloud base seemed to get lower as we went east, but also seemed to lose rotational qualities and eventually started to go linear. I had to get back to Lincoln so we abandoned the storm.

All in all, it was a pretty darn good chase for the first of the year. Saw a nice meso with low-level rotation, positioned ourselves in a good spot with nice backlighting and (hopefully) some decent pics, and actually only had maybe 3 drops hit the windshield while remaining within 3 miles of the base. No HAIL!!!! (knock on wood). It sounds like a few others were in the area and I hope you guys had some good luck as well... especially those who drove a little farther from home. Happy chasing!

 

[J.B. Dixon]

Home in Seward now, after my best (well.....only) March chase ever. Watching things unfold, I knew that if there would be initiation, I may not have far to go. Just as I walked out the door, the towers to the north of Seward really started to go, but at first glance, they just didn't do much for me. I felt that any real shot at seeing a good rotating cell would have to be in better parameters south and east of Seward.

But seeing that the cap was pretty stout to the south, I siomply decided to keep taking the southernmost storm on the developing line, starting with the cell that formed south of Seward, which eventually prompted SVR warnings north of Lincoln.

I watched this cell develop to my west from the I-80/Crete exit, then decided that it was taking the linear look quickly.

A more isolated cell was taking shape west of Dorchester, so I dropped south to Crete to follow the development of this cell. It was the best looking storm of the two, by far, with clean inflow from the south, and a nice little base, allbeit a bit high-based at the time. It went SVR warned at this time. Unfortunately from the look of things, these things were right on the cold front, which didn't allow for any good warm air to give it any real juice. It made some attempts at a meso, took in some scud, and it indeed had the look of wanting to rotate, but I never saw it materialize. It was shrouded in cold rain, as well......typically not what we're looking for.
I didn't hold out much hope for it, even as it went into better LCL's and helicities moving east. I cut back in to Crete as it passed over to find some wi-fi for one last look at things. Listening to the chatter on here, then seeing the cell on radar, I decided not to give up on it, catching back up with it to my east @ Hwy 77 north of Princeton, then render the efforts futile in Firth. Called it a night.

Hey, for March 21st, in se NE I think I'll take a little convection, even when it's a linear mess. I'll add a couple images when they're uploaded, and when I figure out how to do it.

An aside......For some reason I ended up listening to "The No-Spin Zone" on my drive back home. It felt fitting (as well as a bit nauseating).

 

[Daniel Christianson]

Well i got off work and picked up my friend mark, i was crying for hail for a good hour or more and i was granted with hail, its funny because everytime i have ever had my friend mark along it was always a BUST no matter what, i think we went through about 4 hail shafts in different storms, Northwest of Lincoln , West of Wahoo, and Hickman.. was really impressive near hickman, although be it pebble sized, we got some dime sized hail with it, and we could of swore we had hit a few golballs driving along the way it was loud".. it was unfortunate that it was raining and hailing so hard on Route 41 that a car ended up in a ravine 6 ft down off the road, they were ok though. I must say the lightning was blinding at times, all in all a fun but long 6hr chase.. ill post some pics from my cell in a few here.. nothing good , it was getting dark and that cell witch had rotation as mentioned above the time i got on it east of Hickman or so it was linear looking, congrats to all who went out and got something at least....

 

[Reed Timmer]

Here are some pictures of the supercell from ~10 miles south of Lincoln, NE just west of Hwy 77. The storm had great structure, but was a little high-based and was likely undercut by the cold front. It had a nice clear slot for a little while with some rotation as it crossed 77.

 

[Chris Allington]

Can really go beyond anything else anyone has said. Blasted north on Hwy. 77 out of Lincoln when towers started to go up around 5. Hit a gas station near I-80 then headed north to Ceresco and west from there. Let the first storm go and intercepted the other 2 at various points. Got into heavy rain and small hail punching one to return back to Lincoln. Almost went back out for the supercell that passed north of Beatrice but glad I didn't as everything lined out.

Pictures:

Kind of a scenic one as things became more linear.

It tried at times...

 

[CraigFisher]

I left Beatrice,Ne at 3 pm and got to my target of Hebron, Ne at approx 4 pm. Hung around there for awhile and noticed storms with SVR warnings popping off around the Seward/Lincoln area. Figured that the cap was to strong at the southern target and started moving north then east. Came to Crete and the cell that passed over there just went Meso on my radar, but that was very brief. Never did see any rotation from base velocity from OAX. Followed it to HWY 77, then I went back to Beatrice under a linear storm front.
Even though it was a bust, it felt good to get out. Tried out new laptop, cellphone plan. That was great!!! No wifi stops, got the data on the go.

 

[Brian Stertz]

Lincoln NE area chase

Back home from NE chase and 2 "quasi supercells" that seemed to have been undercut by the cold air. Storm #1 which looked decent for a while was north of Ceresco. It tried to hold together a circulation for a few mins. and did have an actual RFD notch for a time...had dime to nickel sized hail on it as it cored out. Storm #2 which had an elongated high based structure on the cold front...seemed to want to get a meso cranking near Crete, but it too seemed to be destined for doom. Experienced very intermittent half dollar sized hail near the Crete airfield shortly after 7pm. I guess you could say there were more than just a few things missing today...

 

[Caleb Kimbrough]

Well....not too bad of a chase for March. Scott, Aaron, and I headed out around noon with the initial target of Concordia, but we actually ended up in Belleville. We met up with Tim Stoecklein for about an hour or so and just kind of hung out in Belleville waiting for something to go up. Eventually we headed back east to Marysville, we had enough time to grab a bite to eat and then the stuff started going up by Omaha so we shot straight north a little ways past Beatrice and targeted the southern cell. It had good structure for a little while....if anything it made for some good pictures, in my book. We hung out around that cell for a little while and then headed south after dark to get some lighting on that end of the line...

All in all, it was a pretty fun close to home chase. What made it great was that we ran into sooo many other people that post on Stormtrack, it's nice to actually be able to put faces to some of the names now. It was nice meeting everyone we ran into....

Here are a few photos:

Here we are chillin' like villains in Belleville, waiting for something to happen.

...and here are a couple of photos of the southern storm:

I'll have the full chase account up on our site sometime tomorrow hopefully...

Caleb

 

[Tony Laubach]

For a trip replanned with 15 minutes notice, this sure turned out quite well! After the roller coaster ride in forecasting this day, this trip changed positions more times than John Kerry! After calling Tom, Jon, and Jenn after midnight last night to cancel our trip, Verne called me at 7am to inform me of the forecast changes and sent me up. Realizing I had no chance to beat rush hour to meet Verne, I figured I was staying home. Shot an email to the three and said today was shaping up and to watch it. Called Jenn and informed her, but she declined the chance. Tom called me back immediately after reading the email and said he'd go if I wanted to go. That was enough for me. I called Jenn back and informed her and she again declined. I told Tom to meet me at the Park 'N' Ride at 9:00am (45 minutes). As I was packing, Jenn called me back and said she was game. Told her to head out the door. We met and were on the road by 9:06am.
Made it to Salina where we grabbed a quick bite to go and headed up to Concordia. We made excellent time across I-70 and were in and out of Salina a few minutes before 4pm. We got in touch with Verne and Michael who were heading up towards I-80 where the cap was eroding. We continued north on Hwy 81 into Nebraska as storms began to fire where SPC's mesoanalysis showed the cap was gone, Storms began to fire southwestward along the boundry and the last storm forming south of York was our target storm. No other storms formed south of that and we found ourselves in perfect position as we pulled up to it near Geneva, Nebraska. We ran along side her for nearly two hours along various Nebraska roads, stopping for pictures and enjoying a slow moving March supercell. We witnessed a couple of funnels, some scud, and great structure as this storm tried to separate itself from the line. We encountered some nickel hail at times between Dorchester and Crete on NE-33. Stopped several more times along NE-33 before dropping into Hickman, then out to Panama where we elected to let the core pass over us near Bennett. We stopped at NE-2 to shoot lightning for an hour before heading to our current overnight stop in York, Nebraska.
All-in-all, an excellent chase for March. Nice to be on slow moving storms this time of year. No disappointment at all as this certainly beat sitting around Denver doing nothing today. We think we had the best storm of the day structure-wise and probably the best storms for isolation as our radar was showing the linear mode of the storms between Lincoln and Omaha. GRLevel3 was the primary radar tool with the Sprint Connection Card and did very well! The webcam was working, but the software kept locking up. Something I can certainly figure out!
Below are a few pictures from the chase...

Our plans are to head home on I-80 tomorrow, and I'll probably have some time tomorrow to update the log for this trip. Looks like it'll surpass the 1000 mile mark as we're shy of 700 now, so another one to add to my 1000 mile ventures. A fun trip with Tom Dulong and Jenn Brindley and certainly a nice break from the Denver grind.

Full report to come...

 

[JHadorn]

There was talk of isolated tornadoes today in southeast Nebraska. Most of the data I had seen today said "Isolated? More like none." I was right, but just for the hell of it I sent a text to my friend Tom to see if he wanted to chase. He didn't have anything going on, so the game was afoot. After a stop at his house so he could show me an image program he's writing to help us with photo management we took off for the Wilber/Claytonia area and would decide what to do from there.

While we were driving through Saline county we noticed this guy pulled off on a gravel road with the typical chaser gear on the back of his truck. Being that we weren't in any hurry we decided to talk to the guy. He was spotting for Saline county but lives in Iowa. What that was about, I'll never know. The guy asked us if we were chasing storms today and I said yes. He then launched into a lecture about how I need to be safe and not drive into storms. I was cordial about it with him, but it was kind of annoying. I've learned my lesson about driving into storms to the tune of a $600 repair bill. I told the guy that I know what I'm doing (which is mostly true) and that I was planning on staying away from the core of any storm. In fact, my plan was to sit miles away and view structure. No desire to get under the bases of these storms since it was likely a crapola day.

So we're walking back to my car when this white car pulls up behind me and this lady steps out. She asks us if we're out chasing tornadoes and I thought she was a fellow chaser. I get all coy and say "Oh us? Why, we'd never do such a thing." Turns out she was just some local yokel wondering what the fuss was all about with two vehicles pulled over on the side of the road. Now some lady probably has a poor impression of storm chasers and thinks I'm a glib jerk. Which I am, but I'm trying to HELP the image of chasers to the general public.

So while we were talking to Spotter Guy we noticed a nice lowering the storm Tom and I were trying to catch up with was devloping near the rain shaft. He calls it in to his net, but by then it was beginning to dissipate, which was a bummer. The storm started to develop another lowering closer to the flanking line. We said we were going to take off and said our goodbye. As an afterthought Tom asked what frequency the spotter net was broadcasting on so we could listen in with his scanner. Spotter Guy then launched into a lecture about how we can't broadcast without a license. No. Duh. We assured him that we can't broadcast with out little handheld scanner and parted ways.

We drove a ways north and turned west on the road with the Saline Center and parked on top of a little hill. We were fairly close to the storm but far enough away that we weren't going to get rain, hail, or struck by an unlikely tornado. We were in a good position so that as the storms continued to back build we could sit and watch for a while before we would have to move. From our position we could look pretty much straight up and see the updrafts of the storms when they weren't being obscured by stratus. The storms had signs of weak rotation (some striation of the base and an obvious rounded look). It produced a decent (not great by any measure) wall cloud for a while. I spent too much time looking at the lowering, so by the time I decided to take a picture it was dying. So this is a picture of a dying wall cloud. You can kinda make out a little RFD knotch just to the right of it.

Full size: http://www.thespiralingshape.org/img/wx/070321/wall.jpg

After watching the storm for a few minutes I figured I should get a shot of the updraft.

Full: http://www.thespiralingshape.org/img/xw/070321/updraft.jpg

I messed with camera settings beforehand, which I probably shouldn't have done. Everything came out much darker than it was. I played with the brightness on the updraft pic:

Full: http://www.thespiralingshape.org/img/wx/070321/updraft_edit.jpg

We then drove north a ways, decided it was going linear in a hurry, and drove home.

So I wouldn't call it a bust. The storms did try to do their thing, but the environment was just too hostile. I'll call it a draw.

 

[Joe Stuart]

We were also on the southernmost cell just north of Lincoln. We were close to giving up on it when it appeared to be turning right so we decided to stick with it headed NE on I80. It had nice structure and an impressive rain shaft and showed minor signs of rotation at one point although it was definatly high based. All in all I think it was a decent chase day for March even though no tornados materialized. We also had a nice lightning show most of the way back.

 

[afischer]

Left KC at 1pm and headed for the forecast triple point. Intercepted a young severe-warned cell in south Lincoln around 600pm. New development occurred to the southwest, so I left the Lincoln cell and drove toward Crete to the tail-end cell. It rapidly started to look really good ~630pm with a wide updraft and rainfree base... then just as rapidly weakened and rained itself out. A new updraft shot up on its southern flank and organized into a beauty of an LP supercell by 710pm. Due to the paltry steering flow I'm not sure if it was able to move off the front/triple point or not. Regardless, a nice chase.

 

[AndrewLee]

I was also on the southern storm. My comments are much the same as everyone else's so I'll just post a few pics.

These were shot just north of Beatrice,NE on Highway 77

These were shot further north of Beatrice (about halfway to Lincoln)

 

[Van DeWald]

Pretty much ditto on what everyone else said. Storms firing right on the cold front. Was also on the southern storm as it moved out of Saline county into Lancaster county. There were a couple signs of a wall cloud trying to form in Saline county, but it never really did get its act together. However, once in Lancaster county, it blossomed, with great circular appearance, and what I thought was the beginnings of an RFD. The lightning show after dark after the sqaull line moved through was a most impressive display. Lots of mammatus on the back side, and just a beautiful array of Mother Nature at her finest.

 

[Michael O'Keeffe]

Had a pretty good chase yesturday. Left Denton, TX at 6:00am and made it to our target of Concordia around 1pm. We waited at the Super 8 for Verne and Michael Carlson. They arrived after 3pm and we were off north to I80. As we arrived closer to I80 a huge tower exploded to our east. We blasted east on I80 and the storm erupted. It was fairly high-based and had decent structure. It lasted awhile a dropped brief funnels from time to time, but wasn't worth noting. We ran into Fred Plowman and we headed south to the tail-end storm.
It took a lot of time to get there, but it was worth it. The storm had incredible structure, but got undercut by the cold front. We ran into Reed Timmer and Caleb Kimbrough in the field, it was cool meeting you guys. We ended the day with a persistent funnel north of Cortland, NE and headed back to KC treated to an awesome lightning show.

Here is a high-based supercell somewhere west of Lincoln on I80. It provided decent structure.

The beautiful updraft of the second supercell south of Linclon on US77.

INCREDIBLE!!! Structured supercell near the town of Cortland, NE on US77.