USA Storm Chase 2015 - Day 7

Saturday 6th June - eastern Colorado dirt track chase

Bit of a mad chase on Saturday, driving along 60 miles of dirt track in eastern Colorado trying to keep up with a developing supercell that eventually dropped a brief funnel and possibly tornado. The roads were tough going after recent days storms, with a few hairy moments driving through lakes and we also had to rescue Jeff Piotrowski - a well-known and respected American meteorologist and chaser, from the mud, 14 of us pulling on a tow rope. All in all a good day!

USA Storm Chase 2015 - Day 6

Friday 5th June 2015 - More Colorado Magic with 3 tornadoes

Colorado is the place to be at the moment, total tornado count up to 11 over 2 days. 8 Thursday and 3 Friday. It wasn't an easy chase, probably one of the most difficult chase days I've had, with core punching HP supercells to get into the area where the mesocyclone and tornado potential was. Initially we headed west just after brunch in Limon, CO where we stayed overnight, as tornado-warned storms were already firing SE of Denver. But as these were struggling after an hour of watching we blasted east to a new area of storms. We got on to them near Anton and blasted through golfball hail into the bears cage to be greeted to a large cone tornado coming towards us:

It was getting only a few 100 yards away when we decided to put our foot down to get out of its path. We then blasted east then cut south to punch through another supercell coming up from the south, core punching more golfball hail and extreme rainfall to come out the otherside to be greeted by another cone tornado dancing in the field  just to the right of the road:

The tornado lifted up and as we continued south we got hit by strong RFD winds wrapping around the mesocyclone above us, further down the road the meso crossing the road behind us dropped another cone tornado and we stopped in a safe position to film/photo it as it crossed the road.

Eventually we blasted back north through the western side of this line of severe storms, stopped in Wray for a nice steak meal in place called 4th Street before heading to Sterling for our overnight stay.

USA Storm Chase 2015 - Day 5

Thursday 4th June - Colorado Magic with 8 tornadoes!

Started the day in Scottsbluff, Nebraska and headed SE to Ogallala, NE for lunch. There were a few areas to target, either western Kansas or uplsope storms in Colorado or Wyoming. We decided to head SW into Colorado after lunch as we noticed storms firing in along the Palmer Divide near Limon, as they often do, so we raced down there, as the southern cell was looking interesting on radar. When we intercepted this storm near Limon, we were treated to a near stationary supercell that dropped 8 tornadoes in all, two at the same time one of which appeared to be anticyclonic. We raced down wet and slippery dirt tracks, with a few hairy moments of fish tailing to try and get to the dry southern side of the storm under the rain-free base updraft area. Took on some RFD winds that was blasting baseball hail horizonally across our path for a minute or so. Unfortuntely one chaser, Verne Carlsen, had the roof ripped off his car by one of the tornadoes, but he was unscathed but shaken. Some property damage in the small settlement of Silma from the tornadoes. Finshed the day in Limon and had steak in a restaurant called Oscars.

USA Storm Chase 2015 - Day 4

Wednesday 3rd June - Wyoming

Was a tough chase day on Wednesday, as the cap was holding down anything significant developing much of the day over our target of SE Wyoming, though we were rewarded by a supercell with rotating meso over Guernsey, WY after 6pm. Risk certainly wasn't worthy of the 10% tornado risk

looking toward the Rockies front range in Wyoming

Tcu struggling to break the cap over Wyoming for much of the day:

Eventually after 6pm 'magic hour' a supercell developed near Guernsey, WY and we witnessed a rotating meso across the fields though no funnels

Watching and waiting for the meso to do something

USA Storm Chase 2015 - Day 3

Tuesday 2nd June - South Dakota and western Nebraska

Started off in Chadron in NW Nebraska with a target of Pierre in central south Dakota, stopped just off the I-90 in central SD for lunch and then hung around an airfield nearby on a hill waiting for something to pop up in the 90F heat, but it was clear after an hour or so of waiting that the cap was too strong. We saw the top of the anvil of the storm way to the north in central south North Dakota, but going after this would have put us way out of position for Wednesday's play in WY/CO. So we opted to head back SW to where we started the day to intercept the storms heading east from Wyoming and we weren't disappointed - certainly from photo opportunities. 

Road works in the middle of nowhere twice slowed our progress, this guy stopped us for 10 minutes while traffic came the other way on a one way stretch.

USA Storm Chase 2015 - Day 2

Monday 1st June - NW Nebraska

More of a travel day than a chase day, we left our overnight stay in Goodland in NW Kansas and headed first west into Colorado before heading north into the far west of Nebraska - though always with an eye on storms coming off the Front Range to our west. We came across a non-severe line of storms that had earlier formed along the front range of northern Colorado and Wyoming and drifted east to our location in western Nebraska early evening. There were some 1 inch hail in the line at one point according to Barons. They were fairly weak, producing a few cgs, but the scenery back drop of rocky bluffs was quite interesting. Arrived in Chadron in Nebraska for our overnight stay ready for a better chance of seeing supercells in South Dakota on Tuesday.

USA Storm Chase 2015 - Day 1

Sunday 31st May - travel day from Texas to NW Kansas

We started Sunday in Dallas and headed up to Goodland in NW Kansas, a 680 mile drive to get in position for the coming week's severe risks over the central and northern Plains. Got a bonus storm near Sharon Springs in western Kansas, which lit up nicely in the sun as the sun set. As it died, we stopped off in a tradtional American Diner in Sharon Springs before heading to our hotel 30 miles up the road.