Actual chase account from 3 May 2003, chasing in the Nebraska Panhandle:
I'm spent! Didn't see any "for sure" tornadoes, but finally
intercepted the supercell that came out of the Scottsbluff area
after producing the large tornado sequence that Anton witnessed
near Minatare... then another significant supercell thunderstorm
about 25 miles west of the first supercell that took nearly the
same track before dark.
My original target was Sidney, NE, but on the way out there, I
was suckered to towering Cu in the Akron area along the dryline.
I felt that, based on the info I was provided, this area would
also go nuts with 140 sfc winds and influx of mid 50s dewpoints.
It never went down there. I had to blast north to Sidney and
continue on 385 to get to the show. I finally intercepted the
first supercell north of Broadwater in the sand hills. On the
way up there, I had a great view of the convection. Even with
100kts impinging on the summit of the storm, it still tried to
backshear. Incredible evacuation of the updraft. Unfortunately,
given my angle of attack, the sunshine killed my chances of
seeing under the storm until I was right there... quite scary
actually. It was like entering a dungeon.
What I had entered was a very dark storm, of which I was
entering the rear flank of I think. The best rotation was off
to my north wrapped up in rain, but the rotation this storm had
was vast. There was probably a large tornado wrapped in the
rain (oh, roughly 2330 zulu? I have to check my times)...but I
was in the sand hills on a sand road, and I had to make due with
the horrible road network in northern Morril County. I tried to
get east as far as I could before I dead ended into a ranch
driveway. I looked north and noticed an incredible, rather wet,
RFD cut. Back in the occlusion, wrapped in rain, was an
incredible tornado cyclone, with decent electrical activity.
I was unable to see an actualy "tornado" because of the hills
and the wrapping of pcpn. At this time, I was on the outskirts
of the rear flank gust front, which was just flying in a
cyclonic sense around the back side of the storm. I had to let
this amazing storm go because of the terrain.
On the heels of this storm was another supercell, and after a
couple logistical decisions, decided to intercept this storm
rather than drive east and continue with the 1st supercell. For
awhile, I was unimpressd with the 2nd Morril County supercell,
however there were reports of tornadoes in the Minatare/McGrew
area once again with this 2nd storm. I planned a second
intercept on the same sandy county road that goes north out of
Broadwater. After talking with Fritz Kruse about what was going
on, the storm really started looking good. A large, hard
updraft was evident to my northwest, and at times, it was
generating weird condensation stuff at the gound underneath a
rotating area of the rear flank gust front. I told Fritz at the
time that I might be seeing a weak tornado, but further
inspection of my video is doubtful, as this was not the actual
area of strong rotation... but just a smaller scale feature on
the RFGF. I drove north and..whoa.. major tornado cyclone now
evident to my north. I continued north to get closer to this
area that was severely occluded, but with tons of cyclonic shear.
There were a couple of instances where I thought a big tornado
may plant out of this occluded updraft, but it was without a
doubt, rotating like a son of a gun. I'll have to review my
video on a large screen. The severely occluded cyclonic shear
was incredible!! No tornado. I then got blasted by 50-60mph
NNW rfd winds and heavy rain, and this storm moved off to the
east. This would have occured roughly 15-20 miles due east of
Angora in northeastern Morril County during the 0100z hour
(exact times unsure yet).
shot some decent lightning video of the developing linear severe
complex around the Oshkosh area 0300z, then arrived at the Super
8 in Kearney... A good day, but didn't get lucky. I still think
I used all my luck for the year on March 17th.
My thanks to Jay Antle, Fritz Kruse, and Jon Finch for great
nowcast support throughout!!
Mike U
