{"id":1492,"date":"2008-05-09T22:47:26","date_gmt":"2008-05-09T22:47:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/2008\/05\/09\/may-9-2008-grant-ne-supercell\/"},"modified":"2008-10-29T21:05:09","modified_gmt":"2008-10-29T21:05:09","slug":"may-9-2008-grant-ne-supercell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/2008\/05\/09\/may-9-2008-grant-ne-supercell\/","title":{"rendered":"May 9, 2008 Grant, NE supercell"},"content":{"rendered":"

Great Scott\u2026\u2026I had a tough decision to make on this morning in Dodge City.\u00a0 <\/span>Should I play today or tomorrow?\u00a0 Today—a good chance of a supercell in northeast CO\/western NE.\u00a0 Tomorrow, our last chase day of the tour—a moderate risk and an excellent setup for tornadoes in the trees of E Oklahoma.\u00a0 By<\/span> chasing today, it would be difficult to be in proper position on the 10th<\/sup>, should the action be in E OK<\/st1:place> or NE TX<\/st1:place>.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>A downside for today was the limited tornado potential in the CO\/NE target area, as dew points were not quite high enough.\u00a0 <\/span>Still, the prospects of chasing a supercell on the High Plains was so much more appealing than trying to chase tornadic supercells through the trees and mountains of E OK, that I decided to head northwest into Colorado.\u00a0 <\/span>I told the guests not to expect a chase the following day, as I doubted that we could make it back east and south in time.
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Our target area was near Sterling<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> to Wray in northeast CO, and as we headed north through Yuma<\/st1:placename> County<\/st1:placetype><\/st1:place> on 385, a cell strengthened to our NNW near Chappell<\/st1:city>, NE.<\/st1:state><\/st1:place>\u00a0 <\/span>The cell was tornado-warned just as we stopped south of it on the Sedgwick\/Phillips county line!\u00a0 <\/span>A large wall cloud appeared to loom a few miles to our north, but the contrast was poor for us.\u00a0 <\/span>A spotter had reported a rotating wall cloud, and this prompted the warning.\u00a0 <\/span>We got up close on the updraft\u2019s southeast side and observed a decent lowering with some slight rotation.\u00a0 <\/span>The supercell, like the day before, had a nasty look to it and it was turning ESE into the inflow.\u00a0 <\/span>The race was on again to stay in front of it as we utilized the unpaved \u201csection\u201d roads.\u00a0 <\/span>Early on the cell was blowing cool air out at us.\u00a0 <\/span>An area filled with precip wrapped around on the updraft\u2019s south side and chased us farther southeast to Vanango<\/st1:city>, NE.<\/st1:state><\/st1:place>\u00a0 <\/span>From here we had to boogie quickly ENE to Grant, with a view into the notch to the east.\u00a0 <\/span>A prominent and blocky wall cloud hung close to the ground, near Routes 61 and 23 on the east side of Grant.\u00a0 <\/span>The supercell was tracking east-southeastward, and the road network went from bad to worse here, so we could do little but sit and watch as the storm continued into southeastern Perkins<\/st1:placename> County<\/st1:placetype><\/st1:place>.\u00a0 <\/span>We stayed a little too long near the core southeast of Grant and caught some golfball-sized hail in the wrap-around precip curtains.\u00a0 <\/span>Halfway to Imperial, we had, like the previous day, a great view of the supercell structure on its south side.\u00a0 <\/span>On our way to another intercept near Palisade, the cell elongated and weakened.\u00a0 <\/span>It was maybe 7 p.m.<\/st1:time> by this time, and I could start thinking about the next day.\u00a0 <\/span>Maybe if we drove a bit tonight, and got up early the next day, we could catch something worthwhile on Day 10!\u00a0 <\/span>I booked rooms in Wakeeney<\/st1:city>, KS<\/st1:state><\/st1:place>, on I-70, and we drove through a lot of heavy rain to get there near midnight<\/st1:time>.\u00a0 <\/span>Another 500-mile-plus chase day in the books:\u00a0 <\/span>588 miles.<\/p>\n

\"08may09_sedgwickco_co_0814.jpg\"<\/a>\"08may09_sedgwickco_co_0816.jpg\"<\/a>\"08may09_sedgwickco_co_0818.jpg\"<\/a>\"08may09_perkinsco_ne_0824.jpg\"<\/a>\"08may09_perkinsco_ne_0829.jpg\"<\/a>\"08may09_perkinsco_ne_0836.jpg\"<\/a>\"08may09_perkinsco_ne_0837.jpg\"<\/a>\"08may09_perkinsco_ne_0839.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n


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\"08may09_perkinsco_ne_0843.jpg\"<\/a>
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\"08may09_perkins_co_ne_sc_08ca10.jpg\"<\/a>\"08may09_perkins_co_ne_sc_08ca09.jpg\"<\/a>\"08may09_palisade_ne_sc_08ca17.jpg\"<\/a>\"08may09_palisade_ne_sc_08ca20.jpg\"<\/a>\"08may09_palisade_ne_sc_08cb23.jpg\"<\/a>\"08may09_palisade_ne_sc_08cb30.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Great Scott\u2026\u2026I had a tough decision to make on this morning in Dodge City.\u00a0 Should I play today or tomorrow?\u00a0 Today—a good chance of a… [Read More]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,22,11],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1492","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-5","7":"category-cumulonimbus","8":"category-supercells","9":"entry","10":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1492\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}