You Win Some, You Lose Most

Today was a good day, but it left me with a sour taste in my mouth, especially on the last chase day of the trip. Maybe I've gotten a little greedy, but I am disappointed after today. We intercepted the Kearney storm and watched it for about 30 minutes as it was west of town. As the storm and circulation got closer to us, we decided we needed to get back east on I-80 and get ahead of the storm. As we were entering the interstate, we all saw a few power flashes in the town of Kearney, but I never saw the tornado itself. We cruised down the interstate a few more miles to get ahead of the storm, and we pulled off at an exit ramp. Power flashes were still visible off to the north, but I never could make out the tornado. Some students said they could, but I only saw the power flashes instead of the tornado.



The entire mesocyclone was extremely impressive and very well defined. In fact, this beast had the look and the environment to be a long-lived supercell that would produce significant tornadoes. Fortunately, that was not the case as another cell behind it interacted and disrupted the circulation east of Grand Island. The second supercell evolved quickly and would produce wall clouds and a few funnel clouds at times. The two storms seemed to evolve into one mega supercell and the entire system began to rotate. This reminded me of the 'Tornadocane' in North Carolina several years ago (http://www.spc.noaa.gov/coolimg/nc_storm/index.html). Multiple areas of rotation were observed, but no distinct area became dominant initially.


As the system neared Aurora, we decided to head south on Highway 14 and cut east on Highway 6. This was a slight mistake because Aurora ended up getting hit by the tornado that was on the northeast side of the storm! Yes, I said northeast side. Typically, large hail falls in the northeast side and the tornado is found in the southwest side. This was reversed with the tornado occurring in the northeast side and large hail in the southeast side. Explain that to the public if you're a TV meteorologist! Traveling south on Highway 14 also caught my eye to the discrete supercells in northern Kansas.

It was decision time at the intersection of 14 and 6. Go south to Kansas or stay on the Aurora storm? An increase in the velocity of the Aurora storm lead me to choose staying with the storm rather than going to Kansas. Big mistake. I'll let the storm reports from today explain why. This decision is why I was disappointed in myself today. Like the title of the post says, you win some and lost most in storm chasing. We had won many and lost little on this trip, so the law of averages quickly restored order to its imbalance. We got back ahead of the storm east of York, and a tornado was actually reported just south of I-80 to the east of Beaver Crossing. We have no idea where that report came from, but our vantage point showed lots of scud at the time of the report. One problem with that report is that the scud was north of I-80 rather than south of I-80 where Beaver Crossing is located. Go ahead and mark that as one less tornado report from today.

The storm weakened after this, and we headed for Lincoln for some food at a barbecue restaurant called Famous Daves. For a chain restaurant, it had some excellent barbecue! The restaurant was nearly blown down by the strong gradient/convective winds in Lincoln thanks to some storms to the south. When we got back to the hotel, I checked the radar to see multiple reports of large tornadoes in Kansas and another in southeast Nebraska. Tough day...

I hope no one was seriously injured or killed in Kearney, and the reports I've seen so far do not suggest any. Many Nebraskans can thank the cell mergers and storm interactions for sparing many towns along and just north of I-80. I'll post pictures tomorrow.