Birthday Supercells in Northwest Nebraska

June 9, 2010 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Summary 

near Harrison, NE, 21 May 10

SHORT: Intercepted 4 supercells, 2 after dark, near Harrison NEb, with 2 funnels from twilight storm S of Harrison.

LONG:
My two main forecast areas on this day were in eastern Colorado, for any storms that could form and move ENE off the Front Range or eastward-extending ridges (Palmer and Cheyenne), and of course the classical upslope play into the Laramie Mountains. Since I began the day in Russell, the CO target was much closer, and more probable to reach by convective eruption time. The idea was to pass through, and if it looked dead, continue onward into SE Wyoming or Nebraska.

Unfortunately I got stuck at a long construction delay between Burlington and Wray, where US-385 is down to one lane with a pilot car driving 15-25 mph for about that many total miles. After getting out of that horrendous mess, I thought my Wyoming/Nebraska hopes were ruined, so I photographed an abandoned farmstead for a bit S of AKO, while waiting for storms to fire in northeast Colorado. The air mass kept looking too stable and stratified, and I gave up once storms E of the Laramie Range began to sustain themselves.

Unfortunately, because of the long intervening distance needed to intercept the resulting supercell, I never made it to the Wyoming phase of its life cycle, when the structure was best. Instead I cruised N from Mitchell on NE-29 to get ahead of the storm, knowing it would be moving into gradually more stable air. A portion of the legitimately scientific V.O.R.T.EX.-2 fleet came up 29 right behind me, along with some pseudo-scientific vehicle with a bogus-looking “TORNADO AND HURRICANE RESEARCH” sticker prominently plastered thereupon. I felt like stopping to ask the “TORNADO AND HURRICANE RESEARCH” crew what papers they’ve published with their “RESEARCH”, but knew the answer, and more importantly, had better things to do — namely, observe the supercell.

Lightning activity above me, in the anvil, was increasing, so I got back in my vehicle. Not a minute after I did, I happened to spot a CG hit within less then 50 feet of that “RESEARCH” vehicle, and about half a mile downhill from me! It even looked like the lightning might have hit them. I started the truck and was throwing it into gear to rush to their aid, when they abruptly pulled out of their spot and zoomed southward past me. It was a very fortunate thing none of them got struck! One of these days, however, under less atmospheric duress, I intend to query such crews in the field and find out about the nature of their “RESEARCH” publications. Anyway…

This shot fairly well represents my view of the old Torrington storm as it scooted across the border into Nebraska. At times it did develop weakly rotating, scuddy wall clouds, but its encroachment upon more stable air yielded the expected result with time ( here shown as a higher, flatter wall cloud with precip-filled occlusion-downdraft slot, behind a sticknet). That storm moved N and NE of me, and I prepared to head to Harrison to look for lodging.

Meanwhile, I parked for a spell to listen to the cheerful choruses of western meadowlarks and breathe the refreshingly rain-cooled High Plains air behind the first storm. V2 left the area, and in the twilight, a new, small supercell formed along or just a shade N of the outflow from the other one, SW of Harrison and about 15 miles to my WNW.

Rather quickly, some cloud-base rotation and lowerings developed under a broad, elongated updraft area, followed in quick succession by a skinny, scuddy funnel (deeply enhanced crop-n-zoom) and then a lower, more robust-looking and separate funnel (enhanced crop-n-zoom). Both of those funnels were quite transient, and I could not detect any dust or debris at the level of the (wet) ground beneath. If either was a brief tornado, it was too weak and short-lived to count as such, so I probably still haven’t seen a tornado on my birthday. Still, I’m glad to have had the experience.

The twilight supercell moved too deeply into rain-cooled air left behind by the first, and weakened considerably. I got a room at the only motel in Harrison — the Sage Motel, a friendly if rather forlorn and cramped place — and called Elke and my kids. One highlight of the day was my daughter and her friends singing “Happy Birthday” to me as a quartet serenade!

Meanwhile, two new supercells popped up in Wyoming, SW of town, headed that way! After getting off the phone, I wandered a few miles W of town to watch the nocturnal supercell pair move quickly past, their structures faintly illuminated at times by in-cloud lightning. I attempted photography, but it was just too dark out there, the lightning too faint. The rear-flank precip core of the second storm hit Harrison, but without severe wind or hail.

I had to be in Denver the following night to meet Elke and prepare for her mom’s public memorial on Sunday the 22nd, so the potential (and realized!) major tornado day in northeastern SD was too far for me to chase. Instead, on the 22nd, I photographed morning fog in the Pine Ridge area N of town, then drove from Harrison to DEN, stopping for a pleasant hike and photography excursion Agate Fossil Beds National Monument along the way. Meanwhile the ultimate tornado-feast was about to begin for other chasers 250-300 miles to my NE.