5/23/09 REPORTS : CO, NE

[Tony Laubach]

The best place to be during a death ridge is along the Colorado front range, and today again produced pretty well given the lack of anything. I left the apartment about 3:30pm and met Dann Cianca at Airpark Road and I-70 where we crawled east eyeing the storms moving north off the Palmer Divide. Shortly before 5pm, a rather disorganized area of interest gave way to ten minutes of a snakey funnel cloud that was probably being undercut by outflow from storms to our south. None the less, it made for a great show as we watched it from I-70 west of Bennett.

We eventually ran into Cameron Redwine and Ed Grubb enroute to intercept the storm again near Prospect Valley and eventually called it a chase where Dann and I stopped for dinner to celebrate yesterday's surprise spout and today's catch!

The funnel near its peak; spectacle lasted about 10 minutes..

http://blog.tornadoeskick.com/ - More on the blog...

 

[Jane Herbert]

Chased a severe storm in SW Nebraska (Imperial / Perkins County) this afternoon, grew large very quickly, we ended up photographing gthe western quadrant and also the main business end of the eastern quadrant over a period of about 2 hours.... (CH)

REPORT ADDED: http://www.stormchasers.au.com/usa230509.htm

Western quadrant of the storm, south of Grant, cells building westward (the western quadrant weakened after outflow effects)

Gustnado - western quadrant outflow gustfront

20 miles east of the western quadrant, the main updraft of the storm complex. This sector of the storm had, for a while, uninterrupted warm air inflow

The bowing outflow gustfront looking west from main inflow area of storm. The outflow alignment curved into the main infeed of the storm.

 

[John Farley]

Mods, can New Mexico be added to the thread title?

I wasn't completely sure when I saw it, but after reviewing my photos I am quite sure that I saw a ropy funnel similar to Tony and Dann's about midway between Albuquerque and Santa Fe a little after 6 p.m. today. Around 5:30 I checked the radar, and noticed a storm north of Albuquerque with a 60 dbz radar return. A few minutes earlier, the Albuquerque NWS had issued a SPS for the storm indicating a potential for 50 mph wind and half-inch hail near Rio Rancho, so I decided to head out from Santa Fe to investigate. The storm that produced the funnel formed near Budaghers ahead of the main line of the storms that included the Rio Rancho storm and another that formed east of it and moved over the north end of the Sandia Mountains. The photos above were taken from about a mile west of the Santo Domingo Pueblo exit on I-25, looking southeast through some rain toward the area under the updraft of the storm ahead of the line. This feature only persisted for a minute or two after I first noticed it. Here are a couple photos; the second one is zoomed with considerable contrast enhancement to better show the feature:

As time permits I will post a full report to my Web site, and will update with the link when I do.

 

[Mike Krzywonski]

Our team chased the storm cluster in northeast CO near Yuma. Although nothing severe, it was relieving to have something to play with.

 

[John Farley]

I have now posted a full report for 5/23/09 at:

http://www.johnefarley.com/chase52309.htm

 

[David Drufke]

Full account and pictures:
May 23rd, 2009 Nebraska tornado warned storm

 

[Nathan Edwards]

I wasn't actively chasing this day travelling from Yellowstone to the Grand Canyon via Monument Valley (gotta do something to make this storm chase trip worth the trip across the Atlantic!). Driving through Utah, I decided to jump onto a small thunderstorm forming up against the edge of the Capitol Reef National Park. It seemed like the terrain was causing some interesting rolling motions in the clouds in this area, and over about half an hour of watching the storm, I saw about 5 small funnel clouds. I'm not sure exactly what I'd class them as, I'm not so tempted to call them cold air funnels as the storm was fairly active with an observable hail/precip core and a reasonable amount of thunder where as I've always associated cold air funnels with minor cumulus type clouds. Are these shear funnels? I never really expected any of these to extend much closer than they did to the ground. At best, they were only 25% of the way down. If anyone can confirm what mechanic causes these, please let me know


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