High Plains Drifter

…Long-lived severe storm complex with beautiful striated updraft/shelf cloud structures — from the Palmer Divide to Oakley, Kansas…

I must say, I was extremely pleased with how this chase turned out.  I had very little choice other than to chase as close to home (Dodge City) as possible, seeing as I had to start day shift early the next morning.  I began this chase in Sidney, NE with a target of the Palmer Divide (around and south of Limon, CO) in mind.  Water vapor satellite was showing a subtle jet streak/mid level moist band moving into western Colorado, timed to come out into the adjacent high plains by afternoon.  Moisture was still very good across eastern Colorado to the east of the Palmer Divide with dewpoints in the lower to mid 60s across far eastern Colorado, so once storms reached this moisture/high CAPE, they should thrive…given the marginal wind shear.  By the time I reached Limon, I already noticed decent towers developing over the Palmer Divide, so I drove southwest on Highway 24 — “the highway to Palmer storms”.  I drove as far southwest as Simla before I decided to hang out on a farm road.  It’s so green out there.  The landscape is just beautifu on the Palmer with wonderful wildflower growth and green rolling hills.  I would love to live out here!!  Anyway, as a young storm started to grow to my west, I ventured southwest to Calhan where I then began my journey on farm roads south toward Hwy 94.  The incipient storm was small and had some shape to it with a precipitation core separated from the updraft area.  Eventually, though, numerous other storms developed to the south and southeast of this initial storm and it quickly became a mess.  All this activity was still somewhat displaced from the good moisture, so I figured I had to give it some time to sort itself out.  Meantime, I was noticing aggressive Cb growth well to my northeast…to the northeast of Limon, and I gave it some thought to just totally abort the Palmer Divide mess and reposition to the northeast.  The easternmost storm of the Palmer mess was actually a pretty little storm with a stout, compact precipitation core coming straight down out of the center of the smallish Cb.  I took a couple photos of this.

An elongated base was just to my south…just south of Hwy 94 from just south of Yoder to south of Punkin Center.  This was slowly moving north toward the highway, so my thought was just to get to Hwy 71 (Punkin Center).  Before I did that, though, I drifted south about a mile or so to try and photograph some of the intense lightning that was barraging the location behind me back to the west.  I tried to get out of the rain with some luck and captured a couple daytime CG’s with the lightning trigger.  All of a sudden, this storm rapidly gained strength right in front of me to the west and northwest.  I got back to Hwy 94 then blasted east to Hwy 71 where I went south.  This began the real chase!  My first stopping location was about 6 miles south of Punkin Center where I photographed a nice updraft structure with the telltale jagged, scalloping appearance that is typical of strong Colorado storms.  I wanted to get east to stay ahead of this, so I started taking more dirt farm roads east and north to Karval.  Along the way, this storm continued to organize nicely, eventually spewing out an ominous white scud cloud against the dark mass behind it.  Excellent contrast!!  I got one image of this massive white scud cloud against the dark storm behind it…complete with a cluster of cows in the desolate pasture.  One of my memorable scenes of this chase.  Another one shortly after that was a high-contrast slanted scud cloud nosing down at an angle above a distant farmstead — the high contrast scenes I’m after!

I continued to take this road east out of Karval, and at this time I’m without internet data, so I wasn’t providing any updates on my Chase Mode page.  The storm was at its strongest near Karval in southern Lincoln County, and the structure was rather impressive given the marginal mid-upper level flow situation.  The storm was really beginning to accelerate as it was becoming outflow dominant, so I couldn’t stop long to shoot the storm.  I continued to drive east and south on farm roads all the way to due south of Wild Horse (by about 12 miles or so).  The storm behind me by this point became so encompassed with dust it was not worth photographing anymore.  So now what to do?  I noticed the next possible development along this outflow surge to my northwest.  The updraft structure was looking a bit more impressive with striated banding, so this was the next one to chase.  I then followed farm roads east and north to Highway 287 to the south of Kit Carson.  Along the way, I photographed this new storm updraft at a couple different instances.  Soon, this storm began to create a big outflow surge complete with widespread blowing dust — it was now a chore just to stay ahead of the surging dust — and I did this all the way east until I got to Cheyenne Wells taking dirt farm roads the whole way.  I finally got back to paved roads at Hwy 385 with the gust front barrelling toward me.  I did not make it into Cheyenne Wells before the dust.  I shot a few images of the surging dust coming toward the highway before I became involved with the dust.  Visibility at the front of the dust was less than a half mile, and briefly just a couple tens of feet!  I estimated 55 to 60mph winds or so at my location there near the intersection of Hwy 40 and 385 just outside of Cheyenne Wells.  Now to get back east.

I had to blast east on Hwy 40 to get in front of the storm updraft/shelf cloud again where the good images were to be found.  It was a chore.  I followed an 18-wheeler into Kansas from Cheyenne Wells, which was swerving against the 50 mph gusts.  Needless to say, I kept my distance!  I didn’t get ahead of the gust front again until I got to Weskan, KS…and it wasn’t until Sharon Springs when I got a good glimpse at the beautiful high-based multi-tiered shelf cloud.  This was one of the more photogenic shelf clouds I’ve photographed I think.  The striations were very crisp, clean, and highly photogenic.  At times, there were individual eddies along the gust front that bulged out in spots which really improved the structure.  This was really cool!  I continued to photograph this shelf cloud, now that I was far enough ahead of it…from Wallace to Winona to Monument along Hwy 40.  I had to be careful, though, because my fuel needle was precariously close to “E”, but I knew I could make it to Oakley.  Man what a beautiful shelf cloud in the golden hour light!  At Oakley, it finally got dark enough and I was satisfied enough with this chase to just end it right there and begin my trek back to Dodge City.  All in all, for a storm that really wasn’t a supercell, this was another fine day of storm photography on the High Plains of Colorado!  Here are some images from this chase:

After waiting patiently all afternoon along highway 26 in Goshen County, WY, I intercepted 3 severe storms that were briefly marginal supercellular in structure that first initiated off the mountains west of I-25 early in the evening.  The first storm was west of I-25 to the northwest of Chugwater, WY.  I managed to get a couple good cloud-to-ground images with the storm’s updraft using the lightning trigger.  I sat at a parking area along the interstate for a good half hour or so watching this storm approach.  This storm weakened and another more formidable severe storm/marginal supercell formed to the southeast of this one near Chugwater.  I took the desolate highway 313 east, which ended up being a perfect road for this storm intercept as it was basically following me down the road.  A classic, high-contrast rain-foot developed at the southern edge of the precipitation core near the updraft/downdraft interface.  The sounds and smells to go along with the sights of this storm.  This was the reason I took this trip!!  This storm also waned, but yet a third storm with some supercell structure formed southeast of this one… to the west and northwest of LaGrange (this is the area where Vortex-2 intercepted the long-lived tornado back on June 5th).  At sunset, the blues, oranges, and violets were vivid.  Fantastic color.   I continued to photograph this storm after dark as it rolled east into Nebraska to the northwest of Harrisburg.  Below is a sample of images from this chase:

My original target on July 10th was Cheyenne, WY in anticipation of late afternoon storm development off the Laramie Mountains.  As it turned out, I ended up chasing non-mountain generated thunderstorms, and eventually chased a storm rather far from my original target.  I sat in Cheyenne for much of the early/mid afternoon, however initial congested cumulus clouds were not doing much, and was actually starting to think I was too far south being in Cheyenne.  There were two areas that caught my attention:  1) heavily congested cumulus field to my northeast, way up near Harrison, Nebraska and 2) some towers forming west and northwest of Wheatland, WY (near Laramie Peak).  I blasted north on I-80 to Wheatland then took a scenic road east to Ft. Laramie along Hwy 26.  An impressive Cb formed to my northeast as I approached Ft. Laramie, and given the lack of convective embryos back to my west toward the mountains, I made the decision to go after a sure thing:  A rapidly developing storm to my northeast.  Given the road network, I wouldn’t be able to make an intercept of this storm until I got north of Mitchell-Scottsbluff.

I took Hwy 29 north about 25 miles with a good view of the Cb right up the road.  I stopped once for photos along this highway.  I then headed east to jump on Hwy 71.  The storm was to my northwest about 10-20 miles away, and it was moving southeast toward me.  I barely made it to a farm road grid west and southwest of Hemingford.  I thought I was in good shape — getting into a pretty good position with this storm, however once I got into a decent position, the storm rapidly declined in intensity.  The storm had split earlier on (supercell processes at work), and the left member of the split moved northeast away from me.  As it turned out, the left member dominated, and the right member (the one I was chasing) died.  This is opposite what usually happens, however the local wind shear profile in this area had either a straight-line hodograph or slightly counter-clockwise looped hodograph in the low-mid levels — which is a little more unusual as low-mid level hodograph shapes for typical supercells tend to have a clockwise curvature to it.  After my storm died (the right member), I drove north along Hwy 2 to photograph the backside of the severe left-mover supercell which went through Chadron.  It began to get dark as I neared Chadron and the storm was also beginning to die, so I ended the chase here.  Below are a few images from this chase:

This was a bust.  No storms developed in the target area.  I actually had two target areas, and even the secondary target area failed to produce a supercell storm… so I’m really not all that disappointed.  My primary target was the slowly moving front across Central Nebraska.  A couple versions of the NAM and even RUC models hinted at possible convective initiation along the boundary in central Nebraska, and per model soundings, if surface temperatures reached 95 degrees up along this front, there would be a shot.  Well, the warmest temperatures I saw on obs as well as per my car’s thermometer, the temperature in the vicinity of maximum convergence along the front never got much above 91 or 92.  The mid level temperatures were simply too warm.  When the cumulus looked at flat as they did for so late in the afternoon, I knew I was in trouble, and it would take a miracle for something to grow into substantial, hard towers and even further into a storm.  The cumulus field did become a little agitated by 5:30 to 6:30pm where I was sitting at southeast of Minden, Nebraska, but it never got beyond that point.  At 7:30pm, I called it quits and headed west toward McCook to set up for Day-2.  Below is one photo I did take of some high level virga that crossed the area around sunset: