It has been a wild week and a half since I flew back to the Plains from L.A. after resting up at home for five days! On June 4th I boarded the plane to fly back to OKC. There was a change-over in Denver. Instead of getting on the plane to OKC, I was picked up by my sister Nancy, and driven halfway to Limon, CO, (just 60 miles away) where Brian Morganti met me so that I could join Tour 4 for its final 2 days! Four of the 13 guests had abandoned the tour after finding it too tedious…or too something, so there was plenty of room for me. The next day we caught the fabulous Goshen County, WY, tornado, though from a high point in Nebraska, about 18 miles distant! I suppose that I can count that as my first Wyoming tornado.
A few days later I met the five guests for Tour 5 at Denver, with my driver Doug Raflik. We killed a supercell as we neared near Pratt, KS, on arrival day after driving hard for 7 hours. But, since then, we have witnessed sensational supercells on each of the first seven (out of nine) chase days! Here is a quick list —
June 10, supercell near Hugoton, KS, great structure, stayed in Lamar, CO
June 11, double supercells down the Arkansas River Valley from Boone to Lamar, awesome structure, very close to “tornado-ing”, stayed in Lamar
June 12, high-based supercell, east-central CO, Aroya to Sheridan Lake, nice structure, rode out hail core in abandoned “quonset” hut, back in Lamar again
June 13, fabulous tornadic supercell at Fort Morgan and Snyder, CO, saw two brief tornadoes, stayed in Brush, CO
June 14, another spectacular double supercell show near Karval, CO, east of Colorado Springs, stayed in Lamar, CO.
June 15, unbelievable wrapped-up tornadic supercell near Assumption, NE, about 15 WSW of Hastings, NE, saw a few brief tornadoes, but the wall cloud and “barrel” updraft stole the show for us! Stayed in Hastings.
June 16, massive and beastly HP supercell moving southeastward through southeast South Dakota, from south of Mitchell to Yankton. Cell produced several rain-wrapped tornadoes, and though we saw “tornadic areas” several times, we didn’t see a tornado. Awesome structure! Staying in Yankton currently.
As you might imagine, I have had little time to spend doing web site stuff and posting images. Most of that will have to wait until I get back home. In the meantime, here are a few summaries from the past week, written for the storm chase community:
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June 13
At our 10 a.m. forecast briefing, I told our group that we would play the Raton Mesa, where upslope flow and H5 flow appeared best. After a WalMart stop in Lamar, I saw Bob Henson’s post regarding the favorable prospects in NE CO, and looked at the new 15Z RUC. As mentioned in my late FCST post for this day, I decided to head north towards Weld County, as there appeared to be clearer skies, similar dew points compared to SE CO and NE NM, NE CO was along the axis of the strongest 250 mb winds, and the cap was weaker.
We waited at Roggen as a warned cell moved out of the Denver area and died. A new cell went up near Hudson and drifted slowly eastward. It pulsed a bit and looked weakly organized between Hudson and Fort Morgan. However, it was rather high-based, with a lot of precip. Other heavy showers were lined up to its NE along I-76 and cloud towers were abundant even to its east and southeast. Our cell was struggling, and I was concerned that a bigger and better show might evolve farther east. I elected to blast east through Fort Morgan to Brush, with some heavy rain during this time. We exited at Brush and looked around…the sky had changed dramatically in the past 15 minutes! The cloud towers had dissipated, and the line of rain that was extending northeast of the “Hudson” cell was now looking like a long inflow feature, feeding a newly banded and sculpted supercell to our due west! All it took for the Hudson (now Wiggins) cell to perk up was for us to briefly abandon it.
We went back west along U.S. 34, and stopped a mile shy of the eastern edge of Fort Morgan to set up the tripodded video. A couple of prominent lowerings hung beneath the wide laminar base, and soon the cell was tornado-warned as a funnel cloud had been reported. We stayed put, about 7 miles east of the cell, and observed a slender funnel cloud take shape near the north end of the base. The condensation funnel reached about 2/3 of the way to the ground and persisted for a couple of minutes. The funnel dissipated to some degree, and we moved west through Fort Morgan to get closer to the action area. Along the way, a skinnier funnel again emerged from the same wall cloud, to our WNW. This tornado-making phase had ceased when we tried to head north from Exit 80. The sheriff was blocking all traffic north.
The cell reorganized as was watched from Snyder (north of Brush), and it failed in the follow-up tornado attempt.
What is rather odd, especially compared to the summaries by others chasing on this day, was that surface inflow into the Fort Morgan storm was pathetic, at least where we were—-on its east and southeast side. Mosquitoes were a constant nuisance, as southeasterly inflow winds struggled to top 12 mph.
Somehow the upslope Colorado magic worked. As we were baby-sitting the lame Hudson storm for an hour or two and lamenting the situation, I was looking at the 0-1km SR helicity for our area. It barely registered, maybe a value of 50. I was thinking that our streak of Colorado supercell days was going to end at three, but a half hour later I was watching a nice supercell and tornado. Still, our chase was a non-action-packed stroll through the rose garden compared to the rock-and-roll fury in SE CO and the mega-CAPE storms in TX.
Bill Reid
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June 14
At times on Sunday afternoon I felt like I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I think we back-tracked three times. The messy convection early on in eastern CO was driving me nuts. Somehow, by sticking to my guns and by getting baled out by CO Magic again, we witnessed a couple of supercells from near Rush to Karval, CO, in Lincoln County.
My forecast area was south of I-70 and north of the Arkansas River. The theta-e axis and CAPE axis were forecast to lie E-W through this area, and mid-afternoon data supported the morning forecast charts. Mid and upper-level flow also looked to be quite a bit better in SE CO vs NE CO, but one look at afternoon data showed little difference here. Generally, I am drawn to the Palmer Divide on upslope days similar to this one, but by early afternoon I was seeing those better theta-e values on an E-W axis some 30-60 miles south of the Palmer. So, after lunch in Limon we headed southeast on 287.
Storms fired early in and around Baca County and caused great consternation. Was this the show of the day? Why was this happening so early? Are these cells elevated? Are they going to mess up my target area from Kit Carson to Punkin Center along Hwy 96? Did I leave the iron on?
We went as far as Wild Horse. Let’s stop here and think about things. Hopefully this early stuff will go on its merry way and won’t do too much damage to my precious pristine SE CO environment. Dews at Lamar and La Junta are still in the low 60s and the surface low is still down there around the NM/CO border and the overall forecast hasn’t been turned upside-down yet. Besides, I can’t catch that stupid early convection anyway. It’s not even in the new tornado watch box. The Palmer Divide is in the box, and Steve H. likes the Palmer Divide now. After 15 minutes at Wild Horse we drove back NE on 287. Hmmmm…….I think the Palmer Divide just might be the right play today, as it is far removed from the stupid early convection. But we’ll stop here at this great high point just west of Boyero where I have a cell signal and I’ll look at more data, because I don’t want to keep driving back and forth like a dufus.
I looked at data by the big radio tower west of Boyero for maybe 20 minutes. It was probably around 3:30 p.m. MDT. Some goofy tornado warnings were up around Denver. Showers were developing along the foothills from Trinidad to Denver, the usual high-based junk, I surmised. Spotter network showed a zillion chasers clinging to the Palmer Divide like white on rice. The better air still seemed to be where I was, though. At this point I wanted/needed to do two things: drift west towards the developing foothill activity, and find the folks that were with me a place for a pit stop. There had been no such place in Wild Horse, and we needed to have a pit stop before things got serious. I decided to head from Boyero and northeast on 287 to Hugo for a pit stop. We went about ten miles. “Turn around, driver!” What am I thinking, going so close to the Palmer Divide when that is not my forecast target area? Sure, we need a pit stop, but I’m staying in my dang fool target area just in case a storm strays into it. We drove back past Boyero and turned west on 96 at Aroya. The sign said “next services 72 miles”. “Colorado Springs 93 miles.” GAD.
A line of storms developed NNE-SSW near the west end of the Palmer Divide to our NW as we drove west through Punkin Center. The tail-end cell was to our due west, near Colorado Spgs. That is good news! Surely this cell will move east through my target area and bring tears of joy to us all. There was no pit stop to stop our pits at in Punkin Center, so we continued west towards our unwarned cell. Nothing was open in Rush, population negative 200, but I knew there would be a pit stop place in Yoder, even though I didn’t recall any from my previous five visits there. There were no Yoder Pit Stop palaces and now the purported cell of the day was raining on us and moving east and if we didn’t do a pit stop and if we did turn around now to stay with this storm then there would be NO PIT STOP EVER. That would not be acceptable, so I cringed as we continued west to Ellicott through the rain and long CGs from this high-based remnant mountain junk storm that would surely trigger tornadic nirvana to my east that I could never catch up with. Ellicott had a convenience store and we were in and out of there in fine fashion.
It was close to 5 p.m., I guess, and we scampered back east through the rain on 96 in order to get back in front of whatever might be worthy of getting in front of. Crazy stuff was happening. Heavy showers were quickly forming and moving in from the south. Strong winds were from the south. A long E-W line of heavy rain set up briefly right along 96. The NNE-SSW line to our north near the Palmer Divide looked to be breaking up a bit with cells looking more discrete…and they were to our northeast and moving east. I won’t EVER catch those and I ruined the chase by coming this far west, I thought! Why did I do this? We drove past Yoder and Rush and more showers popped up to our east — more junky, yucky garbage. Just keep going east and hope for a miracle, I figured.
We continued past Punkin Center, cleared the rain, and, like a flash, things changed — similar to the day before near Fort Morgan. The line of junk to our west was now looking more like two discrete cells on radar. We were under stratus clouds, but it looked clearer to the south. We went south on the road to Karval, then west beyond Karval and back to 71, and lo and behold, there were two unbelievably beautiful supercell updrafts in sight — one to our distant west, with a prominent and very low wall cloud; and one to our WNW, perhaps 7 miles WSW of Punkin Center. These were two of the prettiest and visually impressive rotating updrafts I have seen all season! And, they both had that look that they were serious about producing tornadoes! Rain was wrapping with an RFD cut not too far to our north, and I decided to drift back east to Karval to get a better look at the structure (once it became apparent that a tornado was not imminent). Great low-mid level striations with a huge and long white inflow band were prominent on the east cell. Did I say that the inflow band was both huge and long? Yes.
The rear cell seemed to weaken after its big wall cloud extravaganza, and, unfortunately, was likely seeding the forward cell. Both slowly croaked as we watched from a small hilltop just NE of Karval. We were delighted, though, to have witnessed the double supercells in the beautiful emptiness of southwestern Lincoln County—-even if they lasted less than one hour. This was a confounding and crazy Colorado chase day, and it is amazing to me that such a quick transition to supercells evolved and that I managed to get a good look at them.
Bill Reid
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June 15
Doug Raflik and I started this Monday morning in Lamar, CO, and wound up on the stunning tornadic supercell at Assumption, NE, not too far southwest of Hastings.
Morning analysis indicated that we needed to move east into western KS somewhere (since we were disregarding the upslope play in E CO), in order to be northeast of the deepening surface low near the OK PH later in the day. The plan was to have lunch in GCK and to fine tune thereafter. A look at the data (and out the window) around 1 p.m. still showed the pesky SW surface winds in much of SW KS. These were progged to back nicely by late afternoon, and I figured that we would stick to the relatively simple and nearby target area in the vicinity of Dodge City, just northeast of the low. I was also noting the secondary E-W axis up in northern KS, and the good easterlies on its north side, but nothing was pulling me in that direction —- until Dave Gold’s CFDG post in the early afternoon. He noted the good environment for tornadoes somewhere along the NE/KS border. I considered that option intently and really liked what I saw. At the time the 6-9 hour forecast charts for the northern target area weren’t looking especially better than those for the southern target. However, the large swath of E-ESE winds with dews in the upper 60s just north of the KS border looked a whole lot better than what I was seeing in real time than the obs in SW KS. The CAPE/shear values were about the best I had seen all spring for the warm front area, and around 1:30 p.m. I elected to commit to the KS/NE border, maybe somewhere between Norton and Phillipsburg, I figured. Or hoped.
I headed north through Dighton and Gove, and tried not to look in the rear-view mirror. Giant storm towers were building just a county or two away to our south and SSW…and soon these were warned. I think that Doug and my tour guests were wondering what the heck was going on…what is this guy thinking? We pressed on northward through Grainfield and northeast to Phillipsburg. By this time, near 6 p.m., we were equidistant from three areas with tornado-warned storms, each about 100-150 miles away, to our west, south, and northwest. I said that we were doing a good job at keeping everyone safe from storms today. The huge anvil of the DDC-area storms was not too far to our south, and some towering cu were trying to break through the cap just south of Phillipsburg. I noted a decent-sized cu field just to our east which had the “gravity-wave” look on the satellite pic. Great—-except that the cap seems to be holding. A weak CB overhead died, and we continued east and then north to Franklin, NE, towards some new cumulus clouds. These also struggled against the cap. It was near 7 p.m., and finally an updraft just to our north began to push harder and harder, and yellows and reds showed up on the radar. “This is gonna be good,” I said! This cell was moving north at about 20 mph through eastern Kearney County. We stopped beneath its base at Norman, and this is when the storm stopped, too.
The storm stopped moving, but didn’t stop growing and organizing. The motion in and around the low cloud base above was amazing! Soon, a wall cloud developed a short distance to the northeast, and the cell began to move to the east. We skirted east a few miles and then north a couple, and witnessed what was probably the most wicked-looking non-tornadic storm base that I have ever seen. The RFD cut was strong and the black wall cloud was SICK! I managed some tripodded video of this, and then we had to move east a little more to stay with it. I phoned NWS Hastings to let them know what was going on, and they issued a tornado warning minutes later.
Some shallow funnels came and went and the RFD continued to cut. Rain curtains came around the south side and hit us. We were just southeast of the action area, and I wanted to be east of the slow-moving updraft base. We were using dirt roads and I wanted to be out of the rain for more than a few minutes, so we stopped a few miles east of the wild barrel-shaped updraft base. This spot was east of Assumption by a few miles. A couple of minutes later, the spinning wall cloud issued a brief slender tornado, and then another one. Contrast was great, but these were a bit farther away than I would have liked. A fatter funnel took shape beneath the updraft base, still a few miles to our west. And, there was an area of precip to our north that was edging towards us. Rain and north winds hit us—this must have been due to a new meso area that was taking shape just to our southeast. I elected to move south a mile in order to get out of the rain, and I think it was during this time that the fat Assumption tornado (that Ashley Walker photographed) developed. We looked west as we dropped south, and saw what looked like a wedge tornado, though we couldn’t see the bottom due to hills! We bolted back west on the next dirt road, but the tornado was not visible, perhaps due to precip. A couple of miles later we saw a ghostly white tornado in the rain to our WNW, as the updraft above it shriveled.
So, after moving north, and then east, it seemed like the storm updraft stopped again or perhaps drifted back to the west a little during the final occlusion stages. At one point, the GR Level radar image showed an obvious hook echo with a ball at the end — what an insane storm! Thereafter the new meso moved to the ESE but showed little inclination to become truly tornadic. It was past sunset, anyway, and we remained on its west side through Pauline and Lawrence and viewed the structure.
I got some semi-decent video of the storm and tornadoes and some wide-angle stills, but no good tornado stills, unfortunately. I still have a month’s worth of storm images to weed through — my apologies for not posting pics here and for previous dates. I don’t have the time during the tours if I’m going to get enough sleep to keep going.
Anyway, the storm of June 15 at Assumption in Adams County, NE, is the highlight of the season for me — so far! Congrats to Ashley and others who caught tornadoes this day.
Bill Reid