Day 10, our best chase day . . .
We had a nice night in North Platte as we were able to meet up with some of our friends who were on a separate chase. It was refreshing to have some new people to hang out with, since some in the group were starting to get tired of others in the group . . . The hotel was pretty packed as it seemed like a large number of other chasers had converged in the area for the chance to see some decent storms (which had been few and far between for weeks).
We headed east and then eventually made it to Columbus, Nebraska, where we hoped we would be in the best position. The setup for storms looked the best it had looked all trip. Dewpoints were high enough, the cap wasn't too strong, we had some low-level convergence, and best of all we had some upper level support: a shortwave trough was ejecting out over the Northern Plains. We all felt that would be enough to see a little of what we came to see.
Storms began to fire early in the afternoon, and around 4 we started to head west towards some cells that looked fairly strong and isolated. We were still in the process of trying to position ourselves so that we had the best chance of seeing a tornado if one formed, when we spotted a suspicious looking cloud in a rain free area of the storm. Our radar showed a shear marker in the area, and before long most agreed that we were seeing a wall cloud. Finally, we had a chance of seeing a tornado! We pulled over and everyone got out to take pictures. The storm was in the middle of a vast field, with no houses in sight, so we hoped we might get a brief glimpse of a tornado. It didn't happen. After several minutes the wall cloud slowly faded away.
We headed south towards another storm, as the first one was weakening, but, by this point, the storms were beginning to form into a line. This hurt our chances of seeing a tornado significantly, even though we did see another suspicious low cloud ( the jury is still out on whether it was a wall cloud or not). Because we didn't expect to see anything but a strong storm at this point, we positioned ourselves in front of the squall line that had formed in order to experience the gust front. The dust kicked up from the gust front was incredible and it was easy to see with the sun setting. After the leading edge moved through the core of one of the cells moved right over us, but we did not have any hail at all.
Even though this ended up being our best chase day of the trip, everyone was a little disappointed with what we saw. It seemed like we had come all the way out to the Plains to see something we could see anywhere in the Southeast. I was still happy because we had seen something, and I got to see my first wall cloud (you would think I would have saw one already since I've lived in Alabama my whole life).
Next time . . . the trip winds down . . .
Drew McCombs
ABC 33/40 Weather Intern
abc3340wx2@gmail.com
We had a nice night in North Platte as we were able to meet up with some of our friends who were on a separate chase. It was refreshing to have some new people to hang out with, since some in the group were starting to get tired of others in the group . . . The hotel was pretty packed as it seemed like a large number of other chasers had converged in the area for the chance to see some decent storms (which had been few and far between for weeks).
We headed east and then eventually made it to Columbus, Nebraska, where we hoped we would be in the best position. The setup for storms looked the best it had looked all trip. Dewpoints were high enough, the cap wasn't too strong, we had some low-level convergence, and best of all we had some upper level support: a shortwave trough was ejecting out over the Northern Plains. We all felt that would be enough to see a little of what we came to see.
Storms began to fire early in the afternoon, and around 4 we started to head west towards some cells that looked fairly strong and isolated. We were still in the process of trying to position ourselves so that we had the best chance of seeing a tornado if one formed, when we spotted a suspicious looking cloud in a rain free area of the storm. Our radar showed a shear marker in the area, and before long most agreed that we were seeing a wall cloud. Finally, we had a chance of seeing a tornado! We pulled over and everyone got out to take pictures. The storm was in the middle of a vast field, with no houses in sight, so we hoped we might get a brief glimpse of a tornado. It didn't happen. After several minutes the wall cloud slowly faded away.
We headed south towards another storm, as the first one was weakening, but, by this point, the storms were beginning to form into a line. This hurt our chances of seeing a tornado significantly, even though we did see another suspicious low cloud ( the jury is still out on whether it was a wall cloud or not). Because we didn't expect to see anything but a strong storm at this point, we positioned ourselves in front of the squall line that had formed in order to experience the gust front. The dust kicked up from the gust front was incredible and it was easy to see with the sun setting. After the leading edge moved through the core of one of the cells moved right over us, but we did not have any hail at all.
Even though this ended up being our best chase day of the trip, everyone was a little disappointed with what we saw. It seemed like we had come all the way out to the Plains to see something we could see anywhere in the Southeast. I was still happy because we had seen something, and I got to see my first wall cloud (you would think I would have saw one already since I've lived in Alabama my whole life).
Next time . . . the trip winds down . . .
Drew McCombs
ABC 33/40 Weather Intern
abc3340wx2@gmail.com