I followed this storm to the east-southeast from as far west as about
15 miles northeast of Garden City. The light was fairly harsh to
shoot in with the low sun light and the high base of the storm which
was not precipitating a whole lot. After sunset, a new cell on the
southern end took over and produced a very impressive, dense
precipitation core looking to the southwest in twilight. The color
was revealed by this precipitation core was incredible! Pink and
orange colors glowed from the precip core -- a rather surreal scene
indeed and extremely photogenic.
Today could be a fairly wild day for severe weather on the central and
western plains. This is the first of a number of chase days for me as
I am on AL until the 28th. I am torn between two targets right now.
Target #1 is extreme southwest Nebraska/northeast Colorado/extreme
northwest KS border region -- say Benkleman, Nebraska to Wray,
Colorado. I will be waiting for fresh storms in the 6-8pm time frame
in this area... as there will likely be storms by 4pm coming off the
Laramie Range given the upper tropospheric jet streak dynamics in play
farther northwest (right entrance region of jet). All the high-res
mesoscale models want to convect up there early... and by 7-8pm, I
fear that the western Nebraska Panhandle may already evolve into a
non-supercell severe cluster... so playing farther southeast may be
best.. right at the northern reach of the heat plume where 60s
dewpoints pull back to the west-north west north of the sfc low.
Target #2. South-central Kansas. Very interesting setup here. The
well-forecast MCS is underway as of 1140 UTC over northern KS/southern
NE. The NAM12 all along, and now the high-resolution WRF models,
indicate a signal for development of a honking, nearly stationary
supercell at the dryline/OFB intersection somewhere from like
Hutchinson to Wichita. While the mid and upper tropospheric winds
will be 20-30 knots in this area, the directional shear will be very
good and you gotta love the sfc-850mb flow...yielding very interesting
hodographs with a Bunkers storm motion near the origin. This target
is very tempting (despite the 100-degree heat). There very well could
be a tall tornado from a supercell in this environment if the dewpoint
is > 65F in this area.
At this point, I am kind of leaning toward Target #2 actually... but
this is as of the time of this post before 1200 UTC.
Below is a sequence of images shot from along Hwy 36 east of Last
Chance just prior to sunset. By this time, the storm had completely
lost its updraft and all that was left was an isolated little orphan
anvil with incredible virga shaft remnant from the storm. The color
and contrast looking to the northeast was wonderful -- certainly
living up to eastern Colorado standards for high contrast and color!
A small storm formed about 45 minutes prior to sunset near Deer Trail,
Colorado and moved northeast toward Last Chance. The storm was very
small, and I followed it north along Highway 71 to Highway 36 at Last
Chance before going east. The two images below are along Hwy 71 about
10 miles north of Limon:
