Written by my chase partner Evan Bookbinder:
Day 3 of the chase trip (June 19th) played out pretty much as we expected this morning, targeting north central Kansas once again (High Plains Magic will have to wait one more day). After checking out a few storms along highway 24 (including ping pong ball hail near our favorite town of Osborne), we got on an HP supercell just north of Beloit. This storm served up some amazing structure, including one of the most aqua green skies I’ve ever seen, and filled with cloud to ground lightning. It made several attempts at wrapping up, but after clearly becoming outflow dominant we dropped south for some distant shelf/structure shots before letting the bow echo overtake us. Additional upstream elevated storms provided a great lightning show well into the evening, but the flooding is getting quite bad across this region back toward Concordia. We are headed toward York and I-80, ready to bust west for tomorrow’s show.
Start: Denver (Westminster), CO
End: York, NE
Day 3 mileage: 648 mi
trip mileage: 1453 mi
Images from Day 3′s chase:
Today played out pretty much as we expected this morning, targeting north
central Kansas once again (High Plains Magic will have to wait one more
day). After checking out a few storms along highway 24 (including ping pong
ball hail near our favorite town of Osborne), we got on an HP supercell just
north of Beloit. This storm served up some amazing structure, including one
of the most aqua green skies I’ve ever seen, and filled with cloud to ground
lightning. It made several attempts at wrapping up, but after clearly
becoming outflow dominant we dropped south for some distant shelf/structure
shots before letting the bow echo overtake us. Additional upstream elevated
storms provided a great lightning show well into the evening, but the
flooding is getting quite bad across this region back toward Concordia. We
are headed toward York and I-80, ready to bust west for tomorrow’s show.
Evan and I are traveling east at this time toward Goodland. There is
an increasing surface based cumulus field around Hill City, and after
we eat some lunch in Goodland, we will head in that general direction.
Both the RUC and the HRRR models generate convective precipitation
near the NE-KS border around 5 to 6pm. If a supercell forms in this
area, it will take advantage of very good low level wind shear…
especially by this evening. Stay tuned.
Bookbinder and I are in Denver this morning. We decided to drive to Denver because it appeared Saturday’s best play would be east of the Laramie Range or northeast Colorado. Now it appears the best play will be farther east as a surface wind vorticity center holds on across northwest Kansas most of the day with a low level convergence max somewhere in the HLC-MCK-HDE region. Upper 60s to lower 70s dew points will exist across this region by late afternoon/early evening and it appears that there may be an outflow boundary at play as well from ongoing morning convection near the NE/KS border. The mid-upper level winds actually look better now farther southeast than what the GFS had been showing over the past couple of days (which was the reason we decided to head to Denver in order to position ourselves better). With a narrow ribbon of 30 knots at 850mb and 45 knots projected at 700mb arcing through Kansas, the target area seems more clear cut, so long as we remain on the edge of a rather impressive EML cap.
Reasons for abandoning the NE CO/SE WY play: While the upper flow remains outstanding across the divide into our original target area, the low level shear is paltry at best with 0-3km flow remaining < 15 knots. Additionally, the low level flow trajectories suggest the moisture arrives from a modified continental airmass via a Nebraska route, with the Kansas route of true quality moisture impeded by a local area of kinked low level northerly flow that hangs across NW Kansas. This barrier was suggested in 00Z model data, and has subsequently become evident on visible satellite imagery this morning.
This could be a big, big day along the KS-NE border early this evening. I hate to jinx it, but …. well I won’t go there. Forecast hodographs look excellent with the CAPE and lower 70s dews. As it appears now, we will be targeting this region and not the high plains adjacent the terrain (downstream of the Laramie Range… secondary target).
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Quick Summary from Day 2 (June 18th):
We decided to hit up a Colorado Rockies game for our down day. We first headed to the Wynkoop Brewpub in LoDo (Lower Downtown Denver) and then walked on over to Coors Field. We sat up high in the left field upper deck. Rockies won 2-0. We watched some rather picturesque small showers/storms to the east and southeast at sunset which provided nice pinks and gold colors against the Denver skyline. Rather pretty!
Begin: Hays, KS
End: Denver (Westminster), CO
Day Two mileage: 370 mi
Trip mileage: 805 mi
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Mike U and Evan B
Down day. Driving to position for Saturday which looks good east of the Laramie Range and the Front Range. We will likely head to Boulder to enjoy the late day/evening. Saturday begins a potentially long stretch of good high plains/northern plains chasing with persistent upper level jet stream flow across the rockies and high plains with good moisture in place. More later
Supercell, mammatus, lightning, colored sky, and heat burst — North-central Kansas near Osborne
Evan Bookbinder and I had a fun evening of storm photography across northern Kansas along the Highway 281 corridor around the Osborne, KS area. At 10:00pm, we experienced an awesome heat burst which rose the temperature to 95 degrees with a 45 degree dewpoint. Winds were out of the south gusting to around 50 mph at times. Below are a few photos from this storm chase shoot.
Begin: Lee’s Summit, MO
End: Hays, KS
Day One miles: 435
Trip miles: 435
A great LP supercell, a color/lightning filled =
sunset, then
a dramatic heat burst to cap it off. Done for the night, headed to =
Hays.
Amazing contrast and mammatus with the intensifying storm near Hays. Golden hour in full effect
