Forecast: western Kansas——somewhere. It was not easy to narrow the forecast down on this chase day. Shear and instability were excellent, but there weren’t any strong boundaries to key in on for initiation. We left Sterling, CO, for Scott City, KS, and had lunch at Subway. Dallas Raines, from Ch. 7 (KABC) in Los Angeles met up with the tour to follow along. I think this was his first real Great Plains chase, and he was fired up! We drifted east from Scott City through the afternoon, and finally something went up around 7 p.m. towards Osborne County, north of I-70. We caught the cell near Alton as it became tornado-warned, and it appeared as if it just might put one down. A nice clear slot cut into the back of the updraft base and there was a good deal of up and down motion, but no organized tight low-level rotation. From about 9:30 to10 p.m. we were near the Nebraska border watching lightning with cells to the west and east. Radar showed the new beast about five counties to our south that was demolishing Greensburg.
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