After much heeing and hawing, I finally left home at 2:15 p.m. and got down to Limon by 4:00. I shot down 71 towards Punkin Center trying to catch up with the western end of the line. I was in for quite a structure treat as I emerged from the rain curtain of the supercell dumping copious amounts of rain farther east around Hugo. I saw an absolutely stunning, rock hard vertical updraft about fifteen miles to my southwest, with another supercell developing about 10 miles to its west. I tore west on Highway 94 and then shot down a county road just east of the Lincoln/El Paso County line. I stopped a few miles north of the storm and took a few pictures as the meso tightened and lowered considerably. This was around 5:00 p.m. I began to get excited when a condensation funnel appeared and began lowering towards the ground. I was ecstatic when I saw a small debris whirl on the ground.
The debris whirl only lasted maybe fifteen seconds or so, and then the condensation funnel disappeared within two minutes. I had no cell service so I didn't bother to report the tornado. The meso continued to rotate until it became obscured by the supercell which had formed to it's west. Still wanting to see if the meso would produce anything more, I decided to core punch the bear's cage of the obscuring cell. Bad idea. It was instantaneous; one second the road was dry and it was showering moderately and the next second it was like I had hit a wall of water. The rain was coming down so hard and so fast I couldn't even see to drive so I stopped. The deluge was also occompanied by some quarter to near golf ball size hail, so for a few minutes it was like standing next to a jet engine. When the rain lightened up about five minutes later, the Mercedes was now surrounded by about eight inches of standing water which had completely flooded the county road to the point that it looked more like a stream than a road. :unsure: I decided to get out of there, and though I had to go fairly slow in order to avoid sloshing water up into the engine and stalling it out, I got out of there with minimal ado and thanked God that I had all wheel drive. I got back to Highway 94, went and screwed around in a salvage yard east of Yoder for an hour ( I was bored, what can I say) took the Calhan Highway from 94 up to Calhan, topped off the tank, and then came home.
Total chase mileage: 369 miles
Total severe weather observed: 1 tornado, 1 large hail event and 1 flash flood
Chase Rating Factor: 7 out of 10 (would have been higher if the tornado had stayed on the ground longer) B)
Regret: Not leaving two hours earlier like I had planned (could have seen the Black Forest tornado if I had)
Lesson Learned: Core punching is a STUPID idea.