My Friday 13th chase in Lincoln County Nebraska
Hey Dean great pics! Especially of the two storms lined up, it was quite the day to be in Lincoln County. I was really wishing I had my good camera this day instead of the camera phone.
Here is my chase account that day:
All I have to say so much for Friday the 13th! What a unexpected surprise in North Platte! I was in North Platte for work and was going to Applebee's with some buddies of mine, Wayne Keefer and Ryan Linehan from work. We were heading into Applebee's and told the two that I believe it's going to rain, from the looks of the sky to the north of North Platte was a beautiful anvil already appearing. I didn't think to much of it at all just thinking that it will be your typical "garden variety" thunderstorm. So about an hour goes by eating our food and enjoying some delicous drinks. Some guy hops up from the bar and changes the channel from ESPN to the Weather Channel. Needless to say a few of the guys weren't to happy in the bar but I was happy. Not more than a few minutes goes by the red crawler at the bottom of the tv screen starts "spitting" out severe thunderstorm warnings just up to the north of North Platte with golf ball sized hail and 60 mph winds and my favorite "doppler has indicated weak rotation". I looked at Wayne (he always wanted to go stormchasing with me) and said "You want to go?" Hell ya he said and Ryan wanted to go with us as well so off we went!
I knew we were in business from the moment we stepped outside, from the anvil developing to this classic look of a supercell just a few miles north of North Platte. I have to mention something right now I apologize for the lack of pictures and the quality of pictures you will see. All we had were camera phones with us and just from me getting wrapped up in the excitement in the chase! (God knows it's been well over a year since a good chase lol).
So from Applebee's we high tailed it our north and initially I told Wayne to head north out of North Platte to intercept the storm but from looking at the storm at the top of the viaduct I knew we better go west on highway 30. So we headed west on highway 30 and went west about 4 miles and what you see in the first picture is what we saw! It was incredible and again I apologize for the picture, the picture doesn't do any justice for it. The storm was massive and it was beginning to rotate, and the best part of it the dang thing was right on top of us. When the picture was taken the storm was about a few miles north of us and at the time we thought the storm was sliding southeast but in fact the storm was moving south, southwest! We had to leave this location pretty fast and headed south and west to Hershey and the storm was picking up speed from 10 mph to 20 mph. I told Wayne we have to high tail it to keep out of the rain and hail. He does high tail it, I'm not telling you how fast he was going but believe me it was fast. We arrived at Hershey and headed south out of there to see the storm again in broader aspect. From the location we were at in North Platte to Hershey the storm went tornado warned! Believe me folks I was really wanting my good camera.
To skip ahead a little bit we went further south, and southwest of Hershey to what you see in the 2nd picture. What you see in the picture is the 2nd storm that was heading south to Sutherland and the previous storm was to our south and east of us but still tornado warned and honestly I thought the storm was going downhill. The 2nd storm was soon tornado warned as well! Now remember I thought the first storm was losing it's punch. Okay now onto the 3rd picture.... get this Ryan and myself was looking north to the storm in the second picture and for some reason Wayne looked to the south and said some choice words (lol) I said Wayne what is your problem and I looked south and said some choice words too and from the time we saw the tornado to when Wayne took the picture the tornado was lifting already . It was a very, very brief touchdown but great to see a tornado.
Now onto the 4th picture with the rainbow we had to "punch" the storm to our north that was hitting Sutherland with golfball sized hail we saw this great rainbow. The rainbow was literally outside the car window following us! It quickly faded as we got near the interstate. When we got near Sutherland we kept on hearing about golfball sized hail in Sutherland or larger, we finally got to Sutherland and saw a few stones. What we did see was alot of hail damage to houses, cars and mowed down alot of corn. The following 3 pictures are from my Dad in Sutherland during the hailstorm. THANKS Pops!
I know this is "a book" like my girlfriend said but it was a tremendous chase that Wayne, Ryan and myself enjoyed. So much for Friday the 13th.
One more thanks goes to Wayne for taking the picture of the tornado because by this time my camera phone died! Thanks buddy. Hope you enjoy them!
http://s70.photobucket.com/albums/i94/rfdrandy/Just me goofing around/
The above link is too the pictures myself and my buddies took..
