6/2/2005 Colorado Mothership

That was the first true mothership supercell I ever chased. What a beauty.
Here is a crappy panorama I made of the storm. This was taken in Arriba, CO. Back then I used a POS 3MP Digital Camera and didnt really even thinking about taking pictures in a way that would make them work as a panorama.

Great photos, Sam!
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Must be something in the water. Just the day before yesterday, I sifted through files from 6-2-05 and decided to reprocess a few. Here's the first one I finished, with Eric Nguyen in the foreground running back to his rental car. We'd been discussing our next navigational option.

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Eric and I, along with Houston chaser David Fick, reached the storm as it approached the western fringes of Limon. Softball hail reports came over the radio. For a moment we all split up: Eric continued west (looking for the giant hail), I went north, and Dave south. Dave witnessed a brief tornado, a fully-condensed white cone that I don't believe he's ever posted online. I'll ask him about that image and see if I can link it here later.

Another anecdotal memory from that chase was the morning choice of targets. Southwestern Kansas looked very good, too, if I recall, but with a thermonuclear cap (actually saw that very sounding again during a talk a few years ago in Denver). We'd spent the night in Garden City and it was tough to bail on the Kansas play, and tougher still when Threatnet showed an isolated supercell initiate in the area we'd abandoned. I remember that Kansas storm, around Liberal, perhaps, was tornado-warned, then almost immediately evaporated. Obviously we didn't regret our choice. Structurally, I can't think of many storms which outperformed Limon. For me it's right there with the 5-27-01 haboob and the "Grand Island Mothership" of 5-10-05.

After dinner in Kit Carson, we emerged to discover some cool little storms under a starry, front range night sky. Eric captured this great pic:

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His full image & report page from the event is here.

I'll continue posting more images from this chase to my permanent report page as time permits.
 
That was an awesome storm, I'll have to check my own picture files from that day as I'm almost certain I chased that storm as well (as I'm currently at work). I will post any pictures if I have a good one. I believe this is the storm I saw a tornado out of as well, but like I said I'm at work and my journal and pictures are all at home, I'll get back to you guys on this one.
 
Guys, those are awesome pics, especially the pics that you have posted, Sam :)

What a beast :)

Y'know?... it's not very fair, you guys get to have all the fun, whilst some of us are stuck on the other side of the atlantic in a boring cvountry that has weather systems that are as exciting as watching paint dry :) lol, would anyone like to swap places? :D

In being serious, the pics are awesome and by God, I hope to be able to get out on the plains next year, well I can only hope for the moment :)

Willie
 
Yes a real High Plains beauty

Here is my "panoramic angle" on that June 2, 2005 monster supercell looking west down I-70 near Arriba CO. This was one of those truly jaw-dropping High Plains storms. I am wondering how many windshields that this major league supercell claimed? I chased this day with Jeff & Kathryn Piotrowski, and we got on the supercell just as it moved out of Limon. Jeff and Terry Schenk are in the foreground of this pic. Massive mothership !!

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New version of stitched image

Someone posted a new version of the stitched image. See:

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/4412/241755ppnl1.jpg

Also, for anyone interested, these images were shot with a Pentax 67II, 6X7 cm film camera. The lens used was a 45 mm wide angle, which roughly equates to a 22.5 mm lens on a regular 35 mm SLR camera.

I also shot the storm using a 35 mm SLR camera using a 12 to 24 mm zoom lens set to 12 mm, and a D-70 dSLR using a 12 to 24 mm DX lens set to 12 mm. You can see the images from these cameras at:

http://www.k5kj.net/20050602.htm

I didn't do any dodging and burning, nor any curves enhancement to these images.
 
One of my favorite storms. Amazing green vault when it was putting down baseballs and then the outflow with tumbleweed attack was also a fun experience. Just amazing structure overall.

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Awesome shot Sam...it was amazing how many different views of that supercell were documented by chasers that day. We saw a large number of chasers on I-70. Still baffling was the strong/violent tornado report that came across NWR. I have no doubts the supercell produced a tornado, but the strong cold outflow with the mammoth hailcore would have made anything that spun up...spin down just as fast. I just love those "rings o' saturn" High Plains supercells. The ones where you can see spinning from top to bottom. :rolleyes:
 
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