Sat, 18 Jun 2011 09:17:41 -0500
June 17 Chase Summary and Images (Day 2): Eastern Colorado to Southwest Kansas -- Long-lived High Precipitation Supercell from Calhan, CO to Tribune, KS | Day 2 was a successful day of storm chasing and photography. My
target was southwest of Limon where I thought the southeastern-most
storm would form and thrive in unrestricted east-southeast inflow air.
Once I arrived at the target area along Hwy 94 near Rush, CO, a storm
was already in progress. I first went north on a county road north of
Rush about halfway to Simla when the storm took on supercell
characteristics. It had classic structure at first and revealed a
slowly rotating wall cloud for a little bit as it approached my
location north of Hwy 94. It then became outflow dominant quickly as
it continued east-southeast south of Limon. I followed it east along
Hwy 94 stopping occasionally to photograph the shelf cloud structure
of the rear flank gust front of this now well-established HP
supercell. Some of the best HP supercell structure came when I
stopped at a location a couple miles northeast of Wild Horse on a
county road photographing the storm with a dilapidated looking wheat
field in the foreground. I then continued to Kit Carson and stopped
again a mile south of town to photograph the multi-tiered shelf cloud
and updraft of the HP supercell with the town in the foreground. I
continued south to Eads and met up with the storm again east of
Sheridan Lake. At this point, I went north and east on some dusty
farm roads with the menacing storm to the north. I stopped for a
quick "grab-and-go" shot of some outflow/shelf cloud structure and
then got my butt back south to Hwy 96 near Towner, CO. I stopped one
last time to photograph the incoming dusty storm with the town of
Horace in the foreground then let that storm finally go after chasing
it for 160 ground miles from roughly 2100 UTC (4:00pm CDT) to 0145 UTC
(8:45pm CDT).
To complete the chase, I stopped to get gas Syracuse, KS then
proceeded to follow another storm (to the southwest of the original
long-lived supercell) east to Lakin. At Lakin, I let the storm roll
over me with some pea size hail and 50 mph winds. Once the storm
cleared, I drove east of town about a mile or two and photographed
some amazing anvil/updraft lightning complete with mammatus and a
pristine clear sky in the storm's wake with stars visible. This was
quite the treat to complete this exhaustive chase! I drove back to
Dodge City watching a fairly amazing lightning display along the way
home.
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