Hey—not too bad!\u00a0 It has only been a month since I last said “boo” around here.\u00a0 As usual, during the last month of my chase tour duties, I ignore the web site stuff and get as much sleep as possible in order to remain functional.<\/p>\n
When I left you last, I was headed home for a week in mid-June.\u00a0 I was back on the Plains by June 20th, in time for Tour 7, which began on the 21st.\u00a0 Unfortunately for me and the Tour 7 guests, an excellent chase pattern was wrapping up on June 20th.\u00a0 There were several big days in and around western KS, western NE, and northeast CO from about June 17 to 20, including a nice little tornado outbreak from Hill City, KS, to the York, NE, area on the 20th, I think.\u00a0 This was one of the very few days in the middle of tornado alley this May and June with highly visible, photogenic and chase-friendly tornados.\u00a0 Oh well, so much for the crying.\u00a0 This post will briefly cover my exploits from June 21 to July 6, when my chase season ended.\u00a0 I will be posting images from this spring slowly but surely in the coming months, so keep checking back.\u00a0 I’ll post new updates to let you know where to look for the new stuff.<\/p>\n
Tour 7 was with Chuck Doswell, Chris Gullikson, Rob Petitt, and 12 tour guests.\u00a0 Brian and his wife led a smaller tour concurrently and were with us from time to time.\u00a0 On the arrival day, June 21, we had nothing of interest atmospherically, so we scooted up to Scottsbluff for the night.\u00a0 On the way, we stopped at an abandoned farm somewhere between Cheyenne and Torrington.<\/p>\n
June 22 was nearly as exciting chase-wise.\u00a0 It was another down day, as we were between the great system that was moving east of the Plains and the next one coming into the Pacific NW.\u00a0 We killed time at the ghost town of Ardmore, SD, and at Devils Tower, WY, on our way to Sundance, WY.<\/p>\n
Fortunately there was some convection to look at on June 23.\u00a0 We caught a supercell above pretty terrain around Sheridan, WY.\u00a0 On the 24th, we were under a high-based cell with a CG barrage at Lusk, in front of a supercell at Crawford, NE, and then east of Hay Springs, NE, for a magical sunset.<\/p>\n
On June 25, the pattern remained rather blah, and we waited around Merriman, NE, and Wounded Knee, SD, for some strong storms coming northeast out of Nebraska.\u00a0 The ones we waited for weakened upon approach, while others north and south looked better on radar.<\/p>\n
June 26th was kind of strange, in that late-morning storms in Cherry County became strong supercells by noon-ish!\u00a0 We got in front of one of these north of Brewster, I think, but we couldn’t see anything due to fog, low clouds, and general murk!\u00a0 Finally, as the cell got really close and passed by just to the north, we could see rapidly rotating precip curtains with shotgun CG blasts.\u00a0 Later, we got in front of another similar cell in some murk, and briefly had some decent structure.\u00a0 It rained and hailed on us as we tried to get out of the way to the south, and we gave up on the day near York, NE.<\/p>\n
Our final full day of the tour found us back west on the Palmer Divide, which was fortunate, given its proximity to our base city of Denver.\u00a0 We saw four strong storms move east towards I-25 south of Castle Rock.\u00a0 The final one was strongest and offered good structure and one-inch hail.\u00a0 It pulsed up nicely to our east just after sunset and looked great in the soft, colorful light.<\/p>\n
The 28th of June was spent preparing the vehicles for the next tour, and meeting my fellow tour guides Jenna Blum and Marcia Perez.\u00a0 The pattern continued to be only so-so for good, organized severe weather, and on the first day of Tour 9 on the 29th, we were treated to weak storms in the northern Nebraska Panhandle.\u00a0 On June 30th, we waited for storms on the north side of the Black Hills to get strong, but they struggled.\u00a0 We managed to get into an intense line of severe convection at Murdo around 10 p.m., with winds of at least 65 mph.<\/p>\n
July 1 could have been an epic chase day, but the mega-cell which we caught north of Sioux Falls, SD, moved northeast at 45-50 mph and was impossible to stay with.\u00a0 This storm was no doubt rotating strongly, but was wrapped in rain and hail and not terribly photogenic while we were on it briefly.\u00a0 It went on to produce a long swath of hail and wind damage in Minnesota, practically all of the way to Duluth!<\/p>\n
We abandoned some weaker storms in southwest MN before sunset on the 1st, and got ourselves back west to Plankinton, SD, for the night.\u00a0 On the way, we stopped to photograph some interesting noctilucent clouds.\u00a0 On the 2nd, we were again north and northwest of the Black Hills, in northeastern WY.\u00a0 We got on a couple of strong supercells which had wall clouds and lowerings which might have been tornadic.\u00a0 We weren’t quite close enough to determine any tornado touchdowns, first northwest of Sundance, and then south near Upton.\u00a0 The day ended near New Underwood, east of Rapid City, with a fantastic double rainbow, colorful sunset and occasional lightning.<\/p>\n
The 3rd of July offered a slight chance of storms near the MT\/ND border by sunset, but nothing formed here.\u00a0 We were not interested in driving well west into MT for some marginally severe stuff with little tornado potential.\u00a0 We got into a motel at Belfield, ND, rather early on the 3rd, and then went east on Independence Day and waited and waited for storms to form around Mobridge, SD.\u00a0 The cap was strong and CAPE values were very high.\u00a0 Finally, a supercell formed north of LaPlant, SD, an hour or two before sunset.\u00a0\u00a0 We heard a hail roar with it, but it soon lost out to the cap and it shriveled and died.\u00a0 On our way south to Pierre for the night, we were treated to an amazing lightning display with heavy cells west and north of the South Dakota capital city.<\/p>\n
July 5th was the final full chase day for Tour 9, and we had an excellent storm structure show along Hwy 450 near and east of Wright, WY.\u00a0 There were three supercells, each with classic low-level structure and wall clouds with the occasional funnel cloud.\u00a0 We picked up 3-inch hailstones behind the core of the first one, and\u00a0 I thought that either of the two cells near Wright near sunset were capable of producing tornadoes.\u00a0 They did not, but you’ll enjoy the pictures anyway.\u00a0 I’ll work backwards from July 5 on my chase accounts and images, so the wait should not be too long!<\/p>\n
The guests were back in Denver by mid-afternoon on the 6th, just in time for some thunderstorms.\u00a0 We said our goodbyes, and I was free to head back home to Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
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