Mike Umscheid
EF4
Chadron, NE slow-moving high-based supercell
What an excellent photography day... probably my best storm photography day of the year. Vince and I targetted the area over the northwestern corner of the Nebraska panhandle near Harrison. We were worried about the low dewpoints out this far west... but also realized that quality moisture was just east of our target area...and on increasing southeasterly surface winds by late afternoon/early evening...the western edge of this moisture would make it towards our target. On our drive west we noticed storms firing over the Black Hills area which were rather disorganized on radar and not moving much. Once we got to Pine Ridge and had a quick lunch, we dropped south as some congested cumulus southeast of us caught our eye...which was a little bit closer to the deep moisture. We eventually made it over towards Chadron and then just west of there where we drive around this small lake near Whitney. The area of cumulus to our east finally developed into a storm about 30 miles east of us, so after driving around the small lake we back-peddled towards Chadron and continued east of town about 4 or 5 miles. We had a great backside view of a small storm that indicated severe hail potential on radar and eventually split. After the storm split, both members of the split appeared less interesting visually. One thing we noticed at our stopping location was that our winds increased fairly substantially out of the southeast. This was very interesting and we thought for a moment it could possibly be outflow from that storm... but we were too far away and the storm was too small for this to be outflow... plus it was still quite warm.
Looking back to the west where there was already some high-based disorganized convection...we became more interested with this newly-found strong southeast wind. Sure enough, a storm west of Chadron began to reveal a more interesting dark base and we headed back west a bit towards Chadron. Just before getting into town, we went north on a road that lead up a hill overlooking Chadron. What a view! I remember watching a storm several years ago from this very same hilltop in fact. The next one hour was just fantastic! We watched the storm develop right in front of our eyes to our west overlooking Chadron... developing into very organized high-based structure. At least two formidable rain-foots were highly visible and very impressive off to the west. In fact, the Chadron Airport measured a wind gust of 60 mph right near where this rain-foot was.
Mammatus was also taking on nice structure to our northeast spreading out from the storm. The sound of distant continuous grumbling was just great! The color contrast in the sky was just awesome. Vince was shooting time-lapse video of the whole thing... a solid 55 minutes from our one location on the hill east of town. We headed east finally as the slow moving storm was getting a bit too close, so we continued on east to stay far enough ahead to get the good updraft structure. Circular updraft structure revealed the mesocyclone rotation within the storm. We even had some high-based wall clouds develop with really interesting rotation at times.
Finally at sunset, we went south from Hay Springs a few miles as mammatus was beginning to glow beautiful orange and gold in the direction of the setting sun. We were at this stopping location for about 1hr and 10 minutes south of Hay Springs as Vince once again shot about an hour of time-lapse video of the sunset with the incredible mammatus.... adjacent a field of waving wheat. That whole couple of hours was just high-quality photography all-around... and the slow movement of the storm allowed Vince to get some really long time lapse. A very fun and rewarding day and very near our target area... so it was nice to see our chase forecast verify nicely. 2 images follow. A few more are on my blog at http://www.underthemeso.com/blog
What an excellent photography day... probably my best storm photography day of the year. Vince and I targetted the area over the northwestern corner of the Nebraska panhandle near Harrison. We were worried about the low dewpoints out this far west... but also realized that quality moisture was just east of our target area...and on increasing southeasterly surface winds by late afternoon/early evening...the western edge of this moisture would make it towards our target. On our drive west we noticed storms firing over the Black Hills area which were rather disorganized on radar and not moving much. Once we got to Pine Ridge and had a quick lunch, we dropped south as some congested cumulus southeast of us caught our eye...which was a little bit closer to the deep moisture. We eventually made it over towards Chadron and then just west of there where we drive around this small lake near Whitney. The area of cumulus to our east finally developed into a storm about 30 miles east of us, so after driving around the small lake we back-peddled towards Chadron and continued east of town about 4 or 5 miles. We had a great backside view of a small storm that indicated severe hail potential on radar and eventually split. After the storm split, both members of the split appeared less interesting visually. One thing we noticed at our stopping location was that our winds increased fairly substantially out of the southeast. This was very interesting and we thought for a moment it could possibly be outflow from that storm... but we were too far away and the storm was too small for this to be outflow... plus it was still quite warm.
Looking back to the west where there was already some high-based disorganized convection...we became more interested with this newly-found strong southeast wind. Sure enough, a storm west of Chadron began to reveal a more interesting dark base and we headed back west a bit towards Chadron. Just before getting into town, we went north on a road that lead up a hill overlooking Chadron. What a view! I remember watching a storm several years ago from this very same hilltop in fact. The next one hour was just fantastic! We watched the storm develop right in front of our eyes to our west overlooking Chadron... developing into very organized high-based structure. At least two formidable rain-foots were highly visible and very impressive off to the west. In fact, the Chadron Airport measured a wind gust of 60 mph right near where this rain-foot was.
Mammatus was also taking on nice structure to our northeast spreading out from the storm. The sound of distant continuous grumbling was just great! The color contrast in the sky was just awesome. Vince was shooting time-lapse video of the whole thing... a solid 55 minutes from our one location on the hill east of town. We headed east finally as the slow moving storm was getting a bit too close, so we continued on east to stay far enough ahead to get the good updraft structure. Circular updraft structure revealed the mesocyclone rotation within the storm. We even had some high-based wall clouds develop with really interesting rotation at times.
Finally at sunset, we went south from Hay Springs a few miles as mammatus was beginning to glow beautiful orange and gold in the direction of the setting sun. We were at this stopping location for about 1hr and 10 minutes south of Hay Springs as Vince once again shot about an hour of time-lapse video of the sunset with the incredible mammatus.... adjacent a field of waving wheat. That whole couple of hours was just high-quality photography all-around... and the slow movement of the storm allowed Vince to get some really long time lapse. A very fun and rewarding day and very near our target area... so it was nice to see our chase forecast verify nicely. 2 images follow. A few more are on my blog at http://www.underthemeso.com/blog
The only pic I was able to get of the tornado turned out like crap. First pic 3 mi. East of Cumming(I later came back to the lacation of the pic and it had extensive damage). Second Pic East of Norwalk. After getting a little close to the tornado I decided to head south to get out of its path since it was so hard to see.(3rd pic Storm approaching Indianola, 4th just as it blew over.. Man what a Soaker!!
