Jason Persoff
EF3
Diamond in the rough day. Traveled from Colby, KS, to Ogallala, NE, where I downloaded data from the free WiFi at the Sapp Bros there. While my original target was Crawford to Chadron, NE, I didn't see things evolving there and convection was firing along the dryline in NE CO. I shot down toward Holyoke to witness multicell convection and went through a couple of SVR on my way there. Finally I recognized that as a lost cause and decided to reposition northward for tomorrow.
At about that time I spoke with Bill Hark who informed me that an isolated cell had formed in Deuel County, NE. I could see the anvil and when I moved closer, the cell looked nice, organized, but didn't strike me as a rapidly rotating cell.
As I closed visually on the cell I noted a midlevel feeder band and ingesting cumulus to its east (at about this time it was NE of Chappell on US 30). I loved the pulsing, sharply defined anvil (which I should note was almost directly above the updraft, so I assumed this storm would peter out pretty quickly). I passed a field and thought, I should film that.
Bill called me again to say the cell had a more mature characteristic on radar. I was thinking, "Yeah...wait a minute...mid-level feeder, ingesting cu...maybe this thing is rotating." The base was highly visible so I set up to take some pix when the storm earned a TOR from a good source (who I'll let post himself if he chooses): he had seen a rope tornado and on this cell.
I repositioned onto a gorgeous dirt road abutting a nice field of green wheat. I never did see a tornado with the cell, but the cell visually got its act together and did form a funnel or two (one example below). The storm was definitely visually rotating sufficiently that the front flank eventually rotate around the storm and combined with the RFD (this is definitely due to the lack of ventilation). But the storm never become a rain event like I thought it would and the base remained well defined for a while.
There was good inflow into the storm and Doppler prompted a reissue of the original TOR based on that. But, despite pulsing, it never got going fully. I decided to head north and ended the day dazzled by a spectacular sunset in the Chadron State Park area. Certainly didn't expect all that I got today. Very cool.
At about that time I spoke with Bill Hark who informed me that an isolated cell had formed in Deuel County, NE. I could see the anvil and when I moved closer, the cell looked nice, organized, but didn't strike me as a rapidly rotating cell.
As I closed visually on the cell I noted a midlevel feeder band and ingesting cumulus to its east (at about this time it was NE of Chappell on US 30). I loved the pulsing, sharply defined anvil (which I should note was almost directly above the updraft, so I assumed this storm would peter out pretty quickly). I passed a field and thought, I should film that.
Bill called me again to say the cell had a more mature characteristic on radar. I was thinking, "Yeah...wait a minute...mid-level feeder, ingesting cu...maybe this thing is rotating." The base was highly visible so I set up to take some pix when the storm earned a TOR from a good source (who I'll let post himself if he chooses): he had seen a rope tornado and on this cell.
I repositioned onto a gorgeous dirt road abutting a nice field of green wheat. I never did see a tornado with the cell, but the cell visually got its act together and did form a funnel or two (one example below). The storm was definitely visually rotating sufficiently that the front flank eventually rotate around the storm and combined with the RFD (this is definitely due to the lack of ventilation). But the storm never become a rain event like I thought it would and the base remained well defined for a while.
There was good inflow into the storm and Doppler prompted a reissue of the original TOR based on that. But, despite pulsing, it never got going fully. I decided to head north and ended the day dazzled by a spectacular sunset in the Chadron State Park area. Certainly didn't expect all that I got today. Very cool.
