Long Storm Day, Amazing Storm Night
NE Colorado and SW Nebraska
19 June 11
SHORT: Observed high-based, nondescript storms in eastern Colorado, pretty supercell that got undercut by outflow NW of Wray, and messy CL-HP storm between Benkelman-MCK-Cambridge NE. Spectacular nighttime lightning and storm-structure show at Alma NE with two supercells.
LONG: Starting the day in ITR, we had a pick of two nearly equidistant targets, both in very favorable shear for supercells:
1. The higher terrain of central Colorado to our W, more certain for initiation and more moist than yesterday.
2. An outflow boundary over SW Nebraska and NW Kansas, loaded with right moisture but also uncertain on position and timing of storm potential, if any.
The decision was tough. After looking at observational data of many kinds, I still was undecided but leaning W. High-resolution, convection-allowing models started showing meatballs of high reflectivity evolving from early convection rolling off the Front Range foothills, and fairly consistently from hour to hour. We went that way, careful not to get totally out of reach of the other area, should it go.
An early cell formed off the E end of the Cheyenne Ridge and moved E across the SW part of the Nebraska Panhandle, within reach but outside either forecast area. Even though we could see the anvil storm to our distant NNW, and it started acquiring supercellular characteristics in reflectivity and SRM displays, we stayed the course.
Even though the western area ultimately didn’t pan out, it’s a good thing we didn’t go after the first storm up north–it would have put us out of position for an amazing nighttime show we never saw coming.
Yes, the western storms never got organized. Mike Umscheid and Jay Antle joined us for a spell NW of Last Chance to shoot the breeze in the breeze, bemoaning the disorganized nature of initially promising storms that had erupted to our W. Many times I’ve seen high-based “junkus” storms in eastern Colorado, streaming mammatus and virga, their updraft regions looking like fuzzy rubbish, eventually develop into tremendous supercells. This time, they weren’t.
Deep convective towers formed in the differential-heating zone under their collective anvil edge to our S, SE and ESE, including some big ones developing where the anvil edge passed over the old outflow boundary to our distant E (near the KS/CO/NEb border confluence). They kept thickening and growing until we couldn’t stand it anymore. The models were well-past due for the Colorado meatball that wasn’t to be. The models failed. We threw in the towel on area #1 and headed E in effort to salvage area #2.
By the time we neared the familiar town of Yuma, a big, visually beautiful storm had formed from the towers still to our E, and a deep, supercellular radar echo showed up NE of Wray. As we approached the storm and Wray, we had to stop briefly for this shot looking NE, the robust updraft structure rocketing aloft through clean blue-sky surroundings.
On radar, another supercell had formed in Nebraska to this storm’s E, quickly developing a hook echo. The first one being closer, we headed through Wray to take a look. Unfortunately, the choppy terrain of the Republican River drainage (which always seemed higher than the road on its N side, where the storm was) seldom allowed us a view under the base. By the time we reached the Haigler, NEb area and could get glimpses beneath the storm, we saw a ragged wall cloud but experienced a cold N wind. Outflow! The eastern supercell had spewed a big rear-flank outflow pool that already was blasting past us, and definitely undercutting the near storm.
This mean we had to keep going even farther E, and attempt to intercept the second supercell before dark. On radar the hook looked phenomenal. Tornado warnings blanketed the storm, but in the late-afternoon light, all we saw was dark, slate-gray murk to our NE from down in the valley. While approaching Benkelman from the WSW, with occasional glances between the hills and tall cottonwoods to our NE, we finally saw the cloud base–a large, bowl-shaped lowering, and then, a smooth, tapered tube extending toward the ground! Alas, we had to keep driving to get closer, as contrast was terrible from that distance and viewing angle. This turned out to be a short-lived tornado, very photogenic from a few perspectives other than ours; but we got no pictures of it.
We didn’t see the next brief tornado NNW of MCK, probably due to buildings and other visual obstructions during our brief passage through the W side of town. Feet still on the pedal, we turned N out of MCK, finally in position to see the storm from its inflow region for a few minutes before it blasted past. N of MCK, we stopped to see that the storm clearly had cycled out of its tornadic phase, shooting outflow past us and past its once productive mesocyclone region. I was just relieved to get out of the vehicle and stand for a few minutes!
We headed back down through MCK and E of town, encountering the first really dense concentration of chasers I had seen the whole vacation. Most were well-behaved. Still, it only takes a few morons opening doors into traffic, parking halfway into the traffic lanes, and pulling out into the highway without signaling and at dangerously slow speeds, to heighten tension and create unsafe experiences for everyone. I did a lot of honking and, I must admit, played a little “finger music” in the direction of some of the thoughtless dipwads.
The storm itself, a ragged mess charging toward us and right behind us as we rolled ENE on US-34, almost became an afterthought, as we dodged needless human-caused traffic hazards. [Others had it worse. A tour driver later told me that some sadistic yokel in front of them deliberately drove 20-25 mph in a 55-mph zone for several miles, visibly laughing at and mocking them the whole time.]
I was on edge, and ready to blow this whole ordeal off. Fortunately, darkness started to set in, further motivating us to bail S, out of the way, and search for lodging and fuel. One final observational stop S of Cambridge to view the HP mess to our WNW, and we called it a night (or so we thought). Enough was enough.
Heading E through the southern Nebraska night, we hit town after town that had rolled up its sidewalks for the night, all services closed, no petrol or lodging to be found. Finally we reached Alma, tired, irritable and frustrated after a long day, needle nearly on “E”, having had nothing for dinner but snack food, the last few hours spent mostly stern-chasing or being chased by a difficult, messy, tornado-warned storm, without seeing much except for occasional dumb drivers. Regrettably, I was neither the most clued-in nor the friendliest person to be around at that time. The good news is that fortunes would change for the better very soon.
We noticed a locally run motel, of the sort we prefer against the national chains for their personal service, charm and generally lower cost, this one with only one vehicle there. Fortunately the proprietor’s wife still was awake; in fact, from elsewhere in town she saw us arrive and drove over to check us into a big room with a king bed.
As we unloaded the vehicle, lightning flashes from our old storm increased in intensity to the WNW. Radar examination confirmed that it still was a supercell, headed on an easterly path toward our near-north. A quick check of profiler and VAD winds told me the storm had latched onto the low-level jet and would persist for awhile. Even as tired as we were, the lightning-viewing and photography opportunity was irresistible.
We parked next to a plowed field off the NW edge of town as the formerly messy and ugly supercell spun into view as a dazzling, spinning wonder of electric light and swirled cloud sculpture. All our tension and exhaustion vanished effortlessly, replaced by enraptured wonderment. For a brief time, someone (we later found out it was our friend Brian Morganti) cast headlights across the field, which didn’t bother me since it illuminated the foreground in an interesting way as well.
After spending an hour or so in the presence of that gorgeous sky spectacle, we watched it fling two arcus clouds overhead, blocking view of the best structures, then turn somewhat leftward and weaken. We headed back to the motel and got ready for bed, finally satisfied with this chase day.
As I was looking over some final data for determining the next day’s target (which looked to be very near where we were!), a last-minute radar check showed another supercell had formed on the southern end of a short line of storms to our WNW. It was headed on almost an identical path as the first! Quickly glancing outside, we saw distant but frequent flashes. Could it be? Could we get another amazing light and structure show?
The clock already had turned to the date of June 20. It was after midnight, and we needed to get to sleep and get some breakfast in the morning. It was so tempting to fall face first into the pillow and ignore the call of the strobing sky. Another glance outside: the light show was closer and brighter and strobing even more frequently than the first storm had from the same indirect view. We knew what to do.
One o’clock a.m. found us next to another field on the NW side of town, camera on tripod, nighttime supercell number two whirling its way across the sky, bathed in almost continuous, flickering illumination from its own relentless lightning engine. Wow. To be gifted in this way was a blessing beyond measure. Nobody else was out there this time; we had this one all to ourselves. As the brilliant display scooted by to the NW and N, a carpet of thousands of blinking fireflies rose from a grassy part of the field.
This experience, in total, was unbelievable. I shot dozens and dozens of photos of both storms, every last one interlaced with filamentous tendrils of in-cloud, cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-air lightning. Of these, seven have been selected at somewhat larger resolution for a special web page devoted just to this night.
We slept very well after returning to the room, finally at ease and completely contented. One more incredible chase day awaited on what already was among the most spectacular and rewarding Great Pains vacations I’ve had.
High Plains Lightning Festival
Colorado-Nebraska Border Region
13 June 11
SHORT: Began in BFF. Waited in SNY. Avoided outflow-surfing CO/NEb border storms to intercept supercell near AKO, saw probably non-tornadic dust whirls with storm merger there. Fantastic twilight lightning display from elevated storms along border S of IBM.
LONG:
Elke and I started the day in BFF, targeting the general area of the CO/NEb border SE of there. I wasn’t particularly jazzed by the weak lower-tropospheric winds in the forecast, figuring outflow and/or storm splits would be a problem. Still, it’s the high plains in early June with adequate moisture, upslope flow and at least marginal shear. The answer? Be there.
We waited a good, long time at a hilltop outside SNY, just NW of a dryline that eventually would fire up a tornadic HP supercell in the horrible road network and terrain of the Sandhills. We saw those towers to the distant NE, but chose not to pursue given the great difficulties involved with storm intercepts in those parts.
Meanwhile, we listened to meadowlarks and, on radar displays, watched chaser icons on SpotterNetwork zigzag back and forth across the area in impatience as the lack of focused action. Fuzzy storms began to fire between the Laramie Range and Cheyenne Ridge, which was no surprise; their distant bases were so high we could see them from SNY. I wasn’t impressed. Red dots converged on I-80 and headed W. We sat, waiting and hoping instead for dryline development to access richer moisture to our SE and E.
Finally, off to the distant SW, two storms erupted near and N of the Palmer Divide in Colorado. This was near the very southern fringes of our forecast area; but as nothing much was happening with the dryline nearby, and the storms were reachable, we decided to go have a look. Along the way SW, through the convoluted maze of roads that is Sterling CO, the southeast storm attracted quite a few chaser icons. The NW storm didn’t, was closer, and was in a similar environment; so we headed toward AKO to intercept it.
Alas, along the way, the SE storm calved off a big left-mover and died! Moreover, the left mover shot toward the inflow region of our target storm like a torpedo hell-bent on mutually assured destruction of both storms. Briefly, we got a view of the NW supercell’s mesocyclone area to our WSW before the left-mover’s core arrived; and it looked like a somewhat higher-based version of a North Texas HP “Stormzilla”. This meant big hail; so it was imperative to get S fast.
Yet there loomed the left-mover over the road to our S, likely bearing ice bombs also. It got there as we did, just S of AKO. The two storms started to merge overhead, and in the tiny gap between their cores, two strongly rotating dust whirls appeared less than a mile to our W, about 3 minutes apart. [I was driving and driving hard, so...no photos!]
Though a narrow, ribbon-shaped updraft had formed overhead at the merger location, we could see no obvious rotation in it. I attributed the whirls to gustnado-like vortices being stretched where the two gust fronts met. We maintained an equatorward bearing, encountering only marginal severe hail at best (to our relief).
Arriving just S of the combined storms, which indeed were killing each other, we photographed the dying supercell across rain-drenched corn stubble S of AKO. It was good to see Steve Hodanish and to swap Hodo stories with a co-worker of his, and also, to talk with a few other friendly storm observers whom I hadn’t met before. Yet we were essentially stormless, parting ways and headed back toward our various bases for the night. All that was left, for now, was outflow spinning a windmill under a dark and stormy high plains skyscape.
We headed toward lodging in the Nebraska Panhandle, soaking in the sights of Pawnee National Grasslands in anticipation of spending a couple of upcoming non-chase days of roaming around some of our favorite haunts around the Black Hills, not counting on any more atmospheric excitement. As good fortune sometimes plays on previously under-performing storm days, the night brought about an unexpected–and most welcome–show of splendor that made our night!
A short line of elevated and high-based thunderstorms erupted over the WY-NEb border region atop the outflow pool from all the late-afternoon activity, and moved SE across the southwestern Panhandle and across the Cheyenne Ridge. Evening storms like this in the High Plains can spark profusely, and these absolutely did! We found a vantage just over the CO/NEb border S of IBM (Kimball, not the company) and began shooting away at the approaching spectacle. Assorted forked and in-cloud displays slashed across the fading twilight, their reports blasting resonantly across the wide-open landscape. Soon, some cloud-to-air discharges flickered forth, followed by yet more (and closer) sky-splitting CG action. Wow…what a show!
The lightning was getting too close, though; so we drove through the translucent core of the thunderstorm line a short distance into IBM, crossing a few miles of small hail (with almost no rain!) along the way. I’ll never forget the sight of countless thousands of little white hail balls in the high beams–cascading dots of brightness, the only form of light shining back at me along that dark High Plains highway.
After securing a motel room near the edge of town (like we like to do), we noticed the sparkling display still underway to our SE, and headed back out past the E edge of town for a little crawler-lightning show in the trailing precip region. And with a few more flashes to light up the midnight hour across the western Nebraska prairie, bedtime drew nigh, our storm-hungry palates duly satiated. I had very few lightning photos to show for 2011 until this night, when the heavens unloaded electrical gifts one after another in a most dazzling and appreciated fashion.
Mesmerizing Mammatus Moments
Pritchett CO Supercell
Assorted Storms and Sunset from Boise City OK to Liberal KS
11 June 11
SHORT: From McPherson KS, drove almost directly to Pritchett Co, saw brief tornado with supercell due W but no photos due to untimely town transect. Supercell died, as did another SW of Boise City. Intercepted back side of Turpin storm, photogenic outflows from trailing squall line. Amazing mammatus sunset followed by fun dinner with CoD crews in LBL.
LONG:
This was a splendid first day on the High Plains for us in 2011! The day after hanging out in the beautiful Flint Hills, Elke and I headed W out of McPherson KS on the most direct route bypassing DDC to our target area of SE CO. We stopped along the way just briefly for fuel and to photograph an abandoned shed.
As we got to Syracuse KS, storms already had formed N of the RTN Mesa and W of US-287 in CO, our decision being to intercept the northern storms in a better road network, or the southern, newer storms that promised more unimpeded inflow for longer. We quickly decided on the latter and went S and W through Springfield to Pritchett.
Despite the densely wrapping hook echo on reflectivity displays, we didn’t expect anything substantially tornadic from the southern storm W of Pritchett, which by now had evolved into a mature, intense but high-based supercell. Alas, right as we started to enter town from the N, Elke noticed a conical funnel under the base to our distant W, protruding about 1/3 groundward, with a dust whirl beneath and thin, translucent debris sheath extending between dust whirl and condensation funnel. Of course, it had to be while we were trying to get through the only town within many miles; and I only caught a couple of brief but unmistakable glimpses between buildings. So did a cop; for staring that direction, he tore out of a nearby alley, sirens and lights blaring, briefly blocking the road before drag-racing Duke Boys style around a gas station and vanishing in a dust plume of his own making.
By the time we exited the S side of town, the tornado was gone–no photos, only memories. All visible vortex traces vanished into Colorado-thin air before I could call it in; but I did so anyway. The PUB forecaster seemed relieved that the warning verified, even if by a brief cheezenado.
We cruised W to an observing spot E of Kim, admiring mammatus to our N more than the increasingly featureless and drab storm now devolving to our W. A broad mass of showers and thunderstorms was growing to the older storm’s SE and dumping cold outflow into its inflow–certain doom for a once-powerful and briefly tornadic storm. Where next? Plenty of daylight, and we were storm-orphans. Cells were firing in the north-central Panhandle of OK, far away but reachable; and we could see the anvil of a persistent, solitary but undoubtedly very high-based cell to our S in NM. We had to go to Boise City for a chance to peek at either; so back we headed to the far fringes of our current home state.
Fifteen to twenty minutes spent at the front of a stopped line of vehicles, waiting for a flagman and pilot car on US-287, either cost us an inflow view of an intense supercell later or saved our necks; I’m still not sure which! By the time we got out of that, the remnants of the NM storm passed by CAO and came into view–not surprisingly, a widespread virga bomb dumping downbursts…albeit a wonderfully textured and photogenic virga bomb.
After fueling in Boise City, we targeted the supercell approaching LBL along the KS/OK border, glimpses of which we could see to our distant E and ENE ever since being stuck in the conga line on 287. Along the way to GUY, I couldn’t resist quick stops for two Great Plains specials: a striking scene of an abandoned barn high in late-day sunlight, as if sailing through an ocean of golden wheat, and from N of GUY, a high-based but beautiful Cb to our distant SE near Booker (the next storm W of what became the Follett supercell).
We headed NE from the GUY bypass toward Optima, greeted by the development and maturation of a pretty front-lit and under-lit arcus from the tail end of a short squall line to our W, NW and N. The earth, desperately dessicated and thirsty as you see, was about to get a much-needed drenching and quenching.
That’s what was happening behind the “Liberal-Turpin” supercell that, once we got to Hooker, was E of the road, sitting directly astride US-64 between Hooker and Turpin. Its meso wrapped across the highway to our E, blocking ready access. Police had US-54 blocked heading NE toward LBL, probably because of (by now) very old information about the supercell; so we turned E toward Turpin, creeping up to the back side of the raging HP monstrosity, able to see only scud and wrapping precip rolling southward in surges around the otherwise unseen mesocyclone. I knew what that meant, and considering past lessons, we weren’t about to core-punch it for any price or dare.
If we had arrived 15-20 minutes sooner, without the earlier traffic blockage N of Boise City, we might have made it; but then again, we also might have missed the amazing sunset show that followed. And that would have been a damn crying shame!
Instead of pondering could-have-beens, we admired still more outflow, this being the curiously lit E side of the arcus from the squall line to our N, looking past Hooker. We let that shelf roll over us for some eerie illumination, then plunged through the wet but harmless band of precip to get to our lodging in LBL.
As we entered LBL, it became glaringly obvious that a spectacular sunset show soon would ensue on the back side of the storm complex. The low, golden sun shone through the last curtains of trailing precip, and also through those, we already could see a field of mammatus aloft through chunks of ragged scud clouds evacuating eastward.
We secured our room keys from our favorite little motel there, then headed N of town for a gorgeous Great Plains sky of sunset mammatus that made the entire convoluted trip, every minute of it, worth its unforeseen destination in images such as this. Yet photos, beautiful as they may be, only can convey two dimensions of one sense: vision. This was not just a scene, it was an experience.
Land parched by drought sprang to life in a soothing blend of sound and aroma, cool and moist, as thoroughly refreshing to me as to the dozens of western meadowlarks celebrating in song across every compass point. I longed for the physical capacity to inhale ceaselessly, so as to miss not a millisecond of moist, earthen scent flowing across cool breezes, while sunset’s golden and reddening glow reflected first off the moving tapestry of mammatus clouds above, then off the land below and all around. For a fleeting few minutes, arms spread wide into the breeze, eyes gazing aloft, ears in stereophonic reception of the avian chorale’s cheerful spontaneity, smells of freshness and cleanliness and life, I ventured into a timeless place far outside the confines of self. It wasn’t the first time under such circumstances, either.
Let me assure you, when you are open to releasing your shackles of distraction and worry, and diving headlong into an experience of this nature, every sight, sound and breath swirls together as one multidimensional immersion in full appreciation reaching far beyond words and images. It’s a conscious decision, a gift to accept, an act of release and absorption, letting go and drawing in. These are the occasions when we let go unconditionally, in spiritual as well as sensory ways, bathing in a rejuvenation of sorts that cleanses all accumulated grime from even the farthest crevices of our being. If this is but an ephemeral and incomplete preview of heaven, count me in when the time comes.
Then came the slow descent back into reality, as the colors faded and a growling stomach begged for tangible nutritive sustenance. I noticed, via SpotterNetwork, that Paul Sirvatka and the CoD crew were headed into LBL from the S, so I called and invited them to join us for what turned out to be a fine dinner with enjoyable company.