Stormchasing 2011

I joined Eric and Michael Carlson on three more chases for the 2011 season, and we still didn't get any tornadoes. Nonetheless, there were some cool cloud structures and I ended up with several neat photos. Being very new to this hobby, I think I was less disappointed with the lack of tornadoes than both Eric and Michael!

June 1
Emily was super excited to go on a real chase with us since Denmark's weather hardly compares to what we have here. The target was between La Junta and Las Animas. The main cell we followed was looking good for awhile, then fell apart out of nowhere. Nothing else really happened after that, so we headed back home early. Still, Emily thought it was fun to see what it's like to be in a real stormchasing vehicle!

This was the height of the excitement

Eric and Michael watching the storm die off

June 19
A north east Colorado day with high potential. Spent some time on a storm up North in the Pawnee Grasslands before going back to Fort Morgan in search of something better. We tried to catch up with a gigantic supercell out East, but gave up shortly after passing the Nebraska border as it was still too far away and getting dark. Back in Fort Morgan we stopped at some strange low clouds nearby. It had no recognizable structure in the mess, but we barely caught a glimpse of a land spout for a few seconds at dusk.

Nothing happened until after noon.  But I made friends with some locals.

Michael and Pawnee Grasslands storm

Large cell growing on the Nebraska border

June 25
There was an excellent setup in Nebraska / South Dakota, and we were just desperate enough to go that far! The first day had some decent clouds but nothing great, and was primarily just driving to get into position for the exciting 'moderate' outlook on the 26th. We camped overnight in Chadron State Park, which put us in perfect position in the morning! Nice place, but the best part was the fireflies.

Michael and Eric near Alliance, NE

A few neat storms in the afternoon

On the way to Chadron, NE

Cells started firing as early as 9 am. We eventually followed the storms over to Valentine and the main event happened around 1 pm. A lot of chasers were disappointed that the huge cell turned outflow dominant, but I was pretty excited with the photos I got and amazed with how green the cloud was. Everyone began migrating towards a new and very good looking cell East of Thedford, but it fell apart rather early. Went down to North Platte and headed for home by late afternoon.

The most interesting storm I've seen so far

Outflow dominant storm near Valentine, NE.  A favorite photo of the season.