High Plains Drifter

I was targeting the Sidney, NE area for supercell storms on August 15th.  I left Dodge City early in the morning and made it to Sidney by around 2:30 to 3:00pm or so.  The initial convection I was watching was north to northwest of Sidney, and I drove north to highway 26 at Broadwater.  I had a decision to make:  drive north on 385 to Alliance and follow the activity developing north of me…or head east-southeast toward a congested cumulus field closer to upper 60s dewpoints.  I chose the latter — heading east-southeast to Lake McConaughy.  An isolated storm developed northwest of the lake which was showing some interesting organized structure, but I could never find a good location to shoot this storm from as sunlight was really hampering photography opportunities… therefore I didn’t get any images of this storm.  When I repositioned farther south, the storm vanished at the blink of an eye it seemed like.  Even at this point, I still could have driven north to Arther and highway 92 area, but chose not to.  In the end, the highway 2 corridor from Alliance to Hyannis to Thedford was the place to be this day — or on I-70 in northwest Kansas where an isolated supercell thrived away from the MCS I was chasing.  The “butt” end of the linear storm complex I was only photogenic when the storms were northwest of the lake.  I drove north on a sand road called Berry Road north of the lake off highway 92.  The scenery was fantastic along this road!  Below are a few images of the storms northwest of me from along Berry Road north of Lake McConaughy: