We thought that this might be a day with tornadoes in northeastern KS, north of Topeka, but the weather gods said NO.

Here is my NOW post made early-mid-afternoon:

Our group is a little NW of TOP, at St. Marys, moving north towards Seneca. It would appear that much of the juxtaposition stuff is juxtapositioning near the KS/NE border towards 00Z. The 19Z surface map shows the surface low between Emporia and Salina, with nice ESE winds from Falls City to Hebron. Falls City dew is 72F.

HRRR makes a big storm by 21Z across the border into SE NE, along a E-W boundary with cool ENE wind on the north side. A little later storms go up along and just south of the KS/NE border, according to the latest RUC, on the primary warm front which separates the ESE winds from the southerlies in NE KS. The RUC shows a pronounced moisture convergence bullseye near Seneca, KS, at 00Z.

The satellite pic shows a clump of stratocu in and around Nemaha and Brown counties, so we’ll head on up to Seneca. Skies have cleared out nicely here, with just a few cirrus and stratocu. The smoke situation isn’t too bad —- but it is slightly murky with haze.

We spent a couple of hours in and around Seneca, and waited.  We waited at the church in St. Benedict, and waited some more.  Storms did not develop as expected.  Here is the chase account:

We targeted the Seneca, KS, vicinity, just northeast of the surface low.  Everything appeared to be in place for a supercell with excellent tornado prospects, but deep moist convection was absent in the favored target area. By about 6 p.m. storm towers developed near the Missouri River, two counties to our east. It appeared that if we were to observe a storm today, that this was our best bet. We played catch-up on the Saint Joseph storm, and as it was moving NE at 25 mph we caught it near Stanberry around 7:30 p.m. This was precisely when the storm quickly dissipated. It had been supercellular briefly with an impressive couplet as we honed in on it on its southeast side, but I think it encountered a cool and stable low-level air mass, perhaps the result of previous convection now to its east.

I then waffled between heading SE to strong/severe cells around Gallatin, MO, or going back WSW towards the new strong stuff (120 miles away) west of Topeka and moving into my original target area. I decided finally on the (much closer) back-building cells between Gallatin and Cameron. These were never able to get particularly strong or well organized, at least on the back-end where we were (baseball-size hail was reported with a big cell a county or two to our east). We watched a brief CG display and heard a few hailstones hit the vans, and that was about it. Pesky low clouds frequently blocked our view of the storm towers, so we limped into the Cameron motel with little to show for the day.

So, like yesterday when we figured that we were in good shape and in good position around Falls City, the cap had other ideas and left us with nothing (yesterday) or second-rate slop (today).

On Sunday, May 29, we targeted SE Nebraska, as instability and shear were quite high again.  We meandered a bit around Beatrice during the afternoon, and finally a storm went up just west of Lincoln at 7 p.m.  We were just east of it fairly quickly, and our hopes were somewhat high.  It looked like a nicely sculpted LP supercell, and then it quickly went POOF and was a goner.  The cap wins again.

These desert images were somewhat of a harbinger of the type of weather that would characterize most of Texas for the rest of the spring and summer during 2011.  The first two are at Desert Center, CA, the second two are on Salt Flat in Hudspeth County, TX, the next two are at Orla, and the final two from the Loving/Reeves county line.

This was our third day in Saskatchewan, and our persistence in Canada’s best province paid off.  Severe weather parameters were forecast to be fairly decent towards our west-southwest, in southwestern SK, later in the afternoon.  Around noon-time not much of Western Civilization was privy to my innermost thoughts with regard to the chase forecast:

Happy Canada Day! There is no way in Moose Jaw that I’m going to be able to find 7 rooms for this group at sunset—10:30 p.m.! Yea!

We are starting out in Wolseley, which is on Hwy 1 east of Regina in SK. The Pac NW trough is finally edging eastward enough to give us a very good shot at a supercell intercept. We have been capped out for the most part on our first two days here in southern SK. The 12Z NAM/WRF and the 15Z RUC have their own un-matching ideas. I looked first at the NAM, and it showed a nice area of surface convergence beneath adequate 500 flow in western ND. The RUC downplays this area and suggests that we should head west back towards Swift Current. 850 flow is strong and backed nicely by 00Z in the Swift Current area, and the 500 flow is much faster compared to western ND. Central MT has a CAPE bomb and may light up big time, but the sw SK area has the better low-level shear with good CAPE and sunshine. The HRRR suggests a beefy supercell or two in the vicinity of Swift Current by 23Z.

We are heading west to Moose Jaw and Swift Current.

Our first stop on this chase day was, again, at the A & W fast food place by Moose Jaw.  I was afraid to exit the main highway and to look for another place for lunch.  I found that prices for burgers and fries and a root beer in Canada were nearly double that which I would have expected to pay in the USA.  I really loved chasing in SK, but a few things, like the high prices for food, the lack of soda fountains in the convenience stores, and metric system signs, bugged me.  But, back to the chase at hand.  We stuck to our forecast and killed time in southwestern SK during the afternoon at a tiny town by the name of “Admiral”.  This place is south of Swift Current and west of Cadillac.  Our group enjoyed exploring the area, and though we were in Admiral for an hour or more, we saw no one else.  This place is EMPTY.  Supposedly, a couple of dozen folks call Admiral home.  They must have all been in Swift Current for Canada Day.

From Admiral we drifted west and south to Shaunavon, another tiny farm town. It was close to 6 p.m. CST/MDT, and there was one lone gas station open to fill our tanks and to grab a few goodies. A nearby cumulus field was showing some promise—we would just need to be patient. Or, we could blast to a beast of a tornado-warned cell some 80 miles to our southwest, near Havre. I was tempted, but I stuck to my guns.

My chase summary post to CFDG does a good job describing the remainder of the chase:

We considered blasting towards that, but storm towers were finally building nearby, in our target area. We positioned ourselves just south of the largest storm base, north of Shaunavon. This was around 01Z. It took a little time, but the storm gradually attained supercell status and began to spin hard at mid-levels, according to the Glasgow radar. We watched a heavy precip core develop north of the base, which led to a large and low wall cloud. We got east of the WC west of Neville on route 4. Cloud motions were very nice, but there was no strong and persistent low-level rotation. Cool west winds hit us before I would have liked, too, so there may have been some outflow issues. We scooted east on 43 a few miles and looked back west and northwest again. A very impressive and large “barrel” was practically scraping the surface. It looked for all the world like a very large tornado, but there was only weak rotation with it. VERY WEIRD. We were chased eastward on 43 thru Pambrun, and the supercell became HP in character. New mesos on the leading edge teased us with ephemeral strong rotation and prominent bowl-shaped lowerings, but we never did witness a full-fledged tornado. Radar showed a strong velocity couplet and low-level structure was pretty with inflow bands and a laminar look, but mid-levels were largely obscured by a persistent strato-cu deck. We got ESE of the cell a little before sunset (03Z) south of Hodgeville. The storm seemed to try to wrap up one more time at low levels as it weakened. Light rain from new weak storms to our south was falling, and this led to further weakening. It had been a fun 2 or 3 hours, but the show was over. We found rooms in nearby Gravelbourg.

Now let’s look at some storm images from today.  This first one below is the wall cloud and updraft base of the supercell.  We were stopped on Hwy 4 at Hwy 43, south of Swift Current and west of Neville and looking west.   I think that the base was slightly undercut by rain-cooled outflow at this point.  The lowest levels were not exhibiting strong and organized rotation.  It was also quite dark, even though there was another full hour or more remaining before sunset (around 0145Z/7:45 p.m. CST).  My camera settings for this 16mm wide angle shot were ISO 640, f3.5 at 1/30 sec.

The cell was moving east at about 30 mph and it chased us down 43 past Neville to about Pambrun. The RFD developed strongly and was kicking up dust to our due west, and the action area tightened up and it looked for all the world like a large tornado was in progress to our WNW. The following HD video still images were during a 2-minute timeframe around 0155Z/7:55 p.m. CST.

Though the feature looked much like a tornado, I did not observe strong rotation or any debris or dust beneath the “funnel cloud”. The supercell continued eastward, and Hwy 43 stayed with the storm nicely to its south. East of Pambrun, near Vanguard, an RFD/clear slot was evident and a bowl-shaped funnel cloud persisted. For a minute or two, some dust or debris was kicked up beneath a funnel cloud and there may have been a legitimate tornado (third image below). Light levels were low and contrast was so-so.

The cell turned HP and became less organized as it continued towards Hodgeville and Hwy 19. The final image above is looking north along 19, south of Hodgeville.  Weaker, elevated convection was spreading northeastward to our south, and we rolled into Gravelbourg, where a couple of motels had rooms for us, thankfully.

I also have my eye farther north, around Lusk and Harrison. I cheated and looked at forecast STP numbers on Earl Barker’s page. The 15Z RUC paints a slightly better tornado scenario up in that area, especially after 00Z.

So, think we’ll continue to Fort Morgan for lunch, and then keep going to Kimball for starters. Forecast upper flow looks a little better north of I-80 than along I-70. I suppose I am hedging farther north anyway since we may be playing MT tomorrow.
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Our lunch in Fort Morgan was brief, as a strong storm had developed near DIA (Denver AP) and already had produced a weak tornado! We quickly maneuvered in front of the updraft base via I-76, and were treated to decent storm structure, a high base, and occasionally rotating wall clouds. The storm moved very slowly through the Prospect Valley area towards Wiggins and Fort Morgan. It sported a strong RFD/clear slot at times, but seemed to be less and less threatening in terms of tornado threat as the afternoon progressed into early evening. On a couple of occasions we stuck around to allow the base to move directly overhead, and Brian was kind enough to let me use his fish-eye lens. By dinnertime we were back in Fort Morgan, with the supercell nearby! It looked to be weakening and had become somewhat tiresome. I posted this NOW post to CFDG:

We got on this NE CO storm right after lunch in Fort Morgan when it was near DIA, now it is just north of Fort Morgan and we are watching it while having dinner. I had time to get my haircut in Keenesburg, my wheels aligned in Prospect Valley, read “War and Peace” south of Wiggins, and have my teeth cleaned in Log Lane Village all while staying close to the supercell. It remains rather high-based and has lost its circular updraft look. We’ll let it drift to our northeast for some backside-at-sunset shots. Some chasers dropped south to the t-warned cell near Deer Trail and killed it quickly.

We stopped north of Fort Morgan and found some two-inch hailstones. And, on our way to Torrington for the night, we stopped near Hereford (on the WY/CO state line) to shoot some lightning.  More great photos from Marco Hoogers of this chase here.