High Plains Drifter

(times in CDT). (bold links are photos)  Well, as fun as the day before’s chase was, this chase was equally frustrating.   I began the morning in Sterling, CO — after staying the night with Tony and his friends in a fairly nice Best Western suite.  I awoke around 8am or so and noticed after looking at a few things that there might be a really interesting play near the center of the ejecting upper low over southeastern or east central Colorado.  I figured storms (with perhaps a "cold-core" tornado threat?) would get going shortly after noon or so, and I figured I needed to get down perhaps as far south as Lamar-Eads.  So I parted ways with Tony and his group and drove south.  I should note that one of the big reasons why I decided to head towards the center of the upper low/cold pocket aloft was that east of this area… in southwestern Nebraska and western Kansas…the atmosphere was completely hosed from a pretty large overnight MCS, which really impacted potential instability for the afternoon.  Both the NAM and RUC models suggested much lower CAPE (instability) in these areas, which was the primary area of interest a few days out.

So I headed south to I-70 and continued south to Eads.  Per radar, there was already showery activity developing along the Front Range, which would only continue to develop eastward through the day.  Most of my interest was along an eastward extending arm of showers moving over the Raton Mesa area east and northeast of Trinidad.  The RUC and NAM were both indicating a small area of enhanced low level CAPE by early afternoon north of the Lamar-La Junta area at the nose of a developing thermal ridge.  There was also an axis of horizontal wind shear at the surface (source of vertical vorticity) north of La Junta which would aid in any weak tornado development.  These were the things running through my mind as to why I should consider chasing this area (while no one else really did).  As I approached Eads, I monitored newly developed storms to my southwest.  I filled up gas in Eads and headed southwest from there to kind of get in this area.  There was a little bit of heating (per visible satellite) between this stuff and the other showers farther southwest.  By 1:30pm, There were two areas of interest on radar, one northwest of Ordway and the other just south of La Junta, as I continued southwest on CO96. 

The storm near Ordway was moving northwest and was more difficult to reach than the other storm near La Junta.  The storm northwest of Ordway had a suspicious, very low cloud base that I could barely see on the horizon.  I really wish I was closer, because at times, I was seeing some interesting lowerings and possibly a funnel.  I never did get any photos though.  Eventually, I went north a few miles north of Ordway and positioned myself between the two areas of activity, but there just wasn’t a whole lot of structure to these storms… and in fact the southern storms were taking on more of an outflow dominant type structure.  So, I gave this area a try, and it didn’t "perform", so back east I went to get in position of more isolated storms.  A somewhat interesting small storm developed on the southeast tail of this action to the southwest of Haswell, and I busted east and northeast to get ahead of it.  I did stop for a little bit to get a few photos (1 and 2), but this storm never really developed anymore than what was photographed here, so in anticipation of further development of storms to the northeast as the dry intrusion worked northeast… it was time to keep on driving north.

Driving, and driving, and driving was the story of this chase.  As you can see from the radar and GPS images, all I was doing was driving for the most part during much of the late afternoon and early evening…from Eads, Colorado to Oakley, KS and eventually up to east of McCook, NE.  All the storms were visually displeasing from a photographic standpoint, so I didn’t take any photos at all during this stretch until I approached Nebraska.  I drove north from Oakley in hopes the storms to my west would develop into something interesting, but it would really never happen.  Meahwhile, 40 miles east of where I started the day in Sterling, there were at least a couple weak, brief tornadoes that were documented by Al Pietrycha.  That didn’t exactly make me happy… but oh well, what can you do.  I finally made it far enough north to photograph some decent storm structure just prior to crossing into Nebraska north of Oberlin, KS (1 and 2).  This would be about it though.  To top off this "wonderful" chase, listening to the KU basketball game vs. UCLA was just pouring salt on an open wound.  I made it as far northeast as here before I took a break and turned around to head back home.  After I got a bite to eat in Oberlin I headed home.  I did stop once though to photograph distant lightning in the Cb to the north which was kind of fun.  Photos of lightning illuminated Cbs:  1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Photo Gallery:

http://www.underthemeso.com/gallery2/stormchase/chase07/2007mar24/

Mike Umscheid

(times in MDT). (bold links are photos).  This was a pretty fun chase.  I decided to chase Northeast Colorado since it looked like moist upslope flow would help sustain organized storms in this area by early to mid evening.  I left Dodge City during the late morning hours and arrived in Limon around 1:30pm.  There were already some weak storms going up over the geographically favored area of the Palmer Divide near Monument.  After some food and a fill-up, I continued northwest to Agate where I headed west on unpaved roads to get a little closer to this area of developing storms along the "urban corridor".  The storms took their time developing, and I sat at this location west of Agate for upwards of an hour.  Finally, as the activity was moving more to the northeast, a weak storm became more organized, and I continued west then north after this.  I stopped for a little bit to photograph the marginal structure of this storm, but it did reveal a picturesque precipitation shaft (2) to the west.  On approach to I-70, the storm was becoming a bit less interesting structurally, and the radar signature was also on the demise it had appeared.  I continued southeast to Deer Trail where I met up with Tony Laubach and his chase friends.  We sat there in Deer Trail watching trashy looking storms to out west and north.  We struggled for a bit as to what our next move would be, but ultimately decided to head north and east after newly developed poor-looking storms.

So the chase was on… well sort of.  Around 6pm, we headed north from Last Chance to intercept the best-looking storms on radar near Wiggins.  At around 6:30pm, we reached Brush, and it was at this point that Tony (with his group) and I would diverge…as they were more interested in heading east towards better moisture, whereas I was more interested in the best looking storm closest to our location — which was the storm out near Wiggins.  There was indications that the storm to the west was getting just a bit better structure with an elongated "shelf-cloud" looking structure to the west-southwest.  I headed west on I-76 to get closer to this storm.  It didn’t take long to get in a decent position ahead of this developing storm, and I then headed south half-way between Fort Morgan and Brush.  I stopped at a location about a mile and a half south of the interstate and setup for some photography. 

The storm was really intensifying rapidly with vastly improved structure. (radar).  I did call Tony to let him know of what I was seeing and strongly suggesting they turn around and re-consider this storm.  They did. One thing to note was the dewpoint at Akron to the east… it had increased to 47°F after being in the upper 30s to near 40 most of the day.  The area where this storm was developing was finally seeing some better moisture just after sunset.  The storm revealed some well-organized structure with a faint horse-shoe updraft base.  I really liked the mid-level inflow bands developing in the inflow region of the storm.  As the storm was moving east, I decided to re-position myself to the northeast side of Brush.  A severe thunderstorm warning was issued and golfball size hail was reported on the north side of Fort Morgan.  Radar showed some supercell structure with a decent weak-echo region.  I reached my next stopping location for photos just northeast of Brush, and this is where I met back up with Tony and co.  It was a very nice looking fairly high-based storm.  (radar).  As darkness prevailed, the storm showed very nice striated banding structure, which was very photogenic along with the lightning.  Here are links to a few photos from this location:  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

The storm approached too close once again, and it was time to move northeast.   Unfortunately, in the process, the storm was weakening and was losing its structure.  I stopped briefly one more time for additional lightning photos, but there was too much rain to get out and setup for any shots.  Shortly thereafter, we called it a chase and headed northeast to Sterling for the night.  (radar)  This was my first real decent severe storm structure chase of 2007, and it was good to enjoy it with Tony and his friends! 

Photo Gallery:

http://www.underthemeso.com/gallery2/stormchase/chase07/2007mar23/

Mike Umscheid