5/24/08 REPORTS: SD/NE/IA/KS/OK

[Mike Peregrine]

May 24, 2008
Southeast Nebraska

Never forget.

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EDIT - I targeted SE Nebraska on Saturday because:
1. I really wanted to chase in Nebraska again - it's been forever.
2. It would put me in position for chasing in either Kansas or Iowa the next day.
3. Because the wind fields looked so cool.

Turns out that moisture was scoured from the get-go, and then it really took a hit once Oklahoma decided to light up with Super Colosso Dream Storm '08 (SCDS08). As the afternoon went on, I noticed both convective blowoff from SCDS08 and also the development of stupid stratus across eastern Kansas that can be associated with lower instability. So I decided to move back west, closer to Red Cloud, hoping there could be a little tongue of moisture eek its way up through central Kansas behind the Oklahoma stuff. No ... can ... do. I also felt like there were some other environmental problems on Saturday ... we noticed the towers that were struggling along the boundary were getting slumped over in the UL winds (a telltale sign of lack of CAPE - see photo above), and so they could not overcome the cap. No anvils, except for the convection far north of GRI. So we went to Lincoln, ate awesome Indian food in the Haymarket District, and slept great. I think this day was cursed because a farmer came out and asked us if we were looking for storms. I told him we were and he said he hoped we couldn't find a thing. So it's his fault.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Should have chased Oklahoma instead account up here: http://www.extremeinstability.com/08-5-24.htm

 

[Phil Kurimski]

With convection continuing to our east from the overnight hours our target area of Nebraska was mostly cloud covered during the morning hours. A dry line across central Nebraska seemed like a good bet to chase as it would provide the convergence needed for convection during the afternoon hours. We headed north on 183 out of Hays, Kansas then head east on I-80 in Nebraska. As the skies cleared during the early afternoon and cumulus clouds developed along the dry line we were psyched for a good chase day. After the tornado watch was issued we were optimistic that we would see some good supercells with tornadoes. We quickly got east of the dryline in Aurora then went further back west to get close to the dry line as the cumulus clouds were more pronounced along the boundary. The storms to the north started to blow up and we quickly headed north on highway 281 to chase the developing storms on the dryline.

One of the southern cells became very strong and briefly exhibited shear so we decided we would chase this storm to its end. With the storms moving Northeast at 40 to 50 mph it became difficult, but we managed to stay with it as we followed it to Wolbach, Fullerton and Tilden. As we followed the storm it exhibited great structure and was very photogenic with a much higher contrast than we experienced the last few days. As we stopped south of Tilden to admire the storm we noticed a low rotating cloud south of town. This lowering became very pronounced and developed a funnel cloud that extended more than halfway to the ground at 6 pm. The town sounded the tornado sirens as the funnel cloud passed over the town but it did not appear to touch down.

This would be the best we would get from the storm as we continued to get some great shots of the persistent wall cloud with the storm continuing on its northeast track. We followed the storm to Vermillion, South Dakota until 8 pm. With the storm quickly dissipating and no structure left to the storm we call off the chase and spend the night in Sioux City, Iowa.

This account and pics are here: http://www.mesovortex.com/Storms/may24-2008.html

 

[Tony Perkins]

Nebraska chase account and a video here. It was actually a surprising pleasant, peaceful day after Thursday and Friday's madness.

 

[Justin Teague]

We were finally able to sit down and get some videos posted. The files may take a minute to load, but we didn't want to lower the quality too much. The first 3 videos were hand-held shots from a VX2100 and the last 3 shots were from an HD dash cam. I can't wait to see them in HD, but the wmv files will have to do for now. The 3 dash cam videos (last 3) were rendered in higher quality than the first 3, so they will take even longer to load, but be patient, they are worth it

Here are the links:

http://stormguy.com/may24/may24_1.wmv

http://stormguy.com/may24/may24_2.wmv

http://stormguy.com/may24/may24_3.wmv

http://stormguy.com/may24/dashcamtornado2.wmv

http://stormguy.com/may24/dashcamtornado3.wmv

http://stormguy.com/may24/dashcamtornado4.wmv


Videos of the other tornadoes and a full chase report will be posted at www.stormguy.com within the next week.

 

[Brendon Lindsey]

Got home at 3 a.m. that morning planning on sleeping all day after what had been a dreamy two days... ended up chasing =) Managed to meet up with Mikey Gribble after seeing my first tornado of the day... Then I just kept seeing them... BE Sure to look at the youtube video around 6:25 seconds...http://youtube.com/watch?v=5IcTHCm_cxg
Got some kick butt pictures... Most Exciting first....

Blur looked kinda cool in the next picture.

Then I soon got sucked into this one and was 30 yards away from a rip to shreds Mobile home....

Lightning was worth the extra pic post

 

[Shane Adams]

Summary and images up now:

http://www.passiontwist.com/52408chase.htm