Our chase on August 7 began in Albuquerque, with a target in a SPC slight risk area in the western OK Panhandle. The forecast worked out well, as a storm tower went up near Boise City around late afternoon as we approached from Clayton and Felt. The storm took on some supercell characteristics, with a clear slot and a pronounced lowering or wall cloud as it slowly approached Boise City from west to east. Though the lowering nearly reached the ground and was rotating some, cool outflow was undercutting the updraft and a bonafide tornado near Boise City could not be ascertained by us. Later, we spoke to locals who said that a tornado had been spotted near or “north of the interchange”. The cell cycled a couple of times, and again, was a bit outflowy and undercut as areas with low-level rotation descended. We observed the “atomized rain” which is often associated with tornadic storms, but the storm was a teaser and not a tornado-producer. It was nice being the only chasers on the storm, too!
East of Boise City and Keyes, near Eva, the original storm wimped out but another one to the north had a good low-level look for 10 to 20 minutes. This one weakened, and we drifted south and west near Eva for some late day shelf cloud structure. Finally, we broke through to the west side of the storm at sunset to see a unique rainbow — see the rainbow entry for August 7 on SB.
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