joel ewing
EF5
Finally washed the '06 curse outta' my hair!! Started the day in O'Neill, Nebr. at my cousin's horse ranch, then got on the road towards the Neb. panhandle around noon. Figured that I was wayyy behind schedule and that I'd run into a big MCS by mid-afternoon. I've been so beat-up and bloodied by the '06 Curse that I didn't even feel that I had to drop the hammer and speed westward...as "what's the use, anyway?"
As I exited the west side of Gordon, Nebraska, I ran smack dab into a line of storms....and man, were the clouds pitching wildly. The shear was incredible, however no wall clouds were forming, and I just about said to heck with it and return to driving west some more. But something told me to stay put....that the insane amount of shear I was witnessing and the low level of the bases was reason enough to follow the line and continue watching. When I was approximately two miles east of Gordon....it became tornado city. Tubes began breaking out on both sides of Hwy 20...this would have been approx. 4:25 central. On the north side of the road...inside a rotating rain curtain....small tubes from a weak multi-vortex danced around another briefly at the surface. However, at the same time I had the most gorgeous long thin tube on the ground that I was filming on the south side of the road. This particular tornado lasted almost 8-10 minutes. Once it lifted, I followed the line further east...catching it in about 10 minutes. On the north side of the road now, many different tornadoes were touching down independently from each other. I drove up onto some old ranch road and filmed what I could, and took digital shots as well. I'll post these when I return back to my home in Tucson on Wednesday. All in all, this little outbreak lasted around 35-40 minutes. Man...do I feel better now. This day will give me the grins and ease my pain until Chase '07. Whew!!
As I exited the west side of Gordon, Nebraska, I ran smack dab into a line of storms....and man, were the clouds pitching wildly. The shear was incredible, however no wall clouds were forming, and I just about said to heck with it and return to driving west some more. But something told me to stay put....that the insane amount of shear I was witnessing and the low level of the bases was reason enough to follow the line and continue watching. When I was approximately two miles east of Gordon....it became tornado city. Tubes began breaking out on both sides of Hwy 20...this would have been approx. 4:25 central. On the north side of the road...inside a rotating rain curtain....small tubes from a weak multi-vortex danced around another briefly at the surface. However, at the same time I had the most gorgeous long thin tube on the ground that I was filming on the south side of the road. This particular tornado lasted almost 8-10 minutes. Once it lifted, I followed the line further east...catching it in about 10 minutes. On the north side of the road now, many different tornadoes were touching down independently from each other. I drove up onto some old ranch road and filmed what I could, and took digital shots as well. I'll post these when I return back to my home in Tucson on Wednesday. All in all, this little outbreak lasted around 35-40 minutes. Man...do I feel better now. This day will give me the grins and ease my pain until Chase '07. Whew!!
. Getting used to doing that though. Congrats Joel. I guess I should have followed you after last night. 
. With the late afternoon the lighting conditions became quite bad so we drove further south to get a little further to grab some lightning shots but by then the storm was pretty weak. Staying in Colby, KS for the night and tomorrow's setup. Been here in the Plains for almost two weeks, several grand gone and this finally made the trip. Will be around for another week before heading back home to Florida for the hurricane season. I know there is a lot of chasers that made their trips this year that had to literally go back home with nothing. It is just sad. Somebody's luck/happiness always means somebody else's less fortunate outcome of things. Let's hope the rest of the season can bring more similar days and that things will be different (much better) in 2007. Good luck out there.
we decided to at least go check it out, upon arrival we did not like what we saw mainly a high based outflow look to the storm and about this time showers where begining to develop over Denver. So we opted to drop south and keep our faith in the WRF, glad we did as on our arrival to the storm it grew emmensly. After thinking the storm was looking like it was gonna go bonkers it began to look like it was loosing its updraft , but boy this upslope stuff can quickly evolve as Tony Laubach reminded us; after looking weak it quickly regenerated and formed the neatest RFD I have ever been in. The view from the North of the RFD was cool but once we drove through the RFD dust and got to the South Side 
we were treated to an amazing show. 
