May 24th, 2010

First and foremost, this was an extremely frustrating day. Very tough to chase storms that are moving due north at 60+mph over sparsely populated areas (and thus not a very good road network). I spent the previous night at a (overpriced) hotel in McCook, NE. Interestingly I was definitely not the only chaser to stay in McCook this night (or even the only chaser at the hotel I actually stayed at). Ran in to F5 chase tours as well as a news channel chaser from Texas. Got up in the morning to look over data. I knew storm motions were going to be insane so I decided I would hang back south and west over western Nebraska where it looked like motions might not be as bad. What I failed to understand is that it's not any easier to chase a storm moving at 60 mph compared to a storm moving 65 mph, which is about what the difference was between South Dakota storms and Nebraska storms this day. I left McCook at about 9:30 am and headed straight north. I was planning on getting to North Platte and re-evaluating from there. By this time it was about 11:15 am and I decided to continue north. No sooner did I get thru North Platte than an MD came out for the panhandle of Nebraska mentioning initiation of tornadic supercells over northeastern Colorado becoming possible and moving north in to Nebraska and a tornado watch would likely be issued soon for the area. By this time I was about 15 miles north of North Platte (and interstate 80). Given that I was only about 90 miles east of the area mentioned in the MD I decided I would go for that given that if it verfified I could potentially have 5+ hours of straight chasing. After back-tracking back to I80 I head west. Storms quickly go up over northeastern Colorado and I think game on. Problem is I forgot how fast these things were moving. Long story short these storms would train over the same area while being tornado warned (and some tornadic). Despite my best efforts to catch these things before they flew by I missed all but one of them. By the time I got the final storm it wasn't anything more than a marginal hailer as I come through the town of Bridgeport, NE. For whatever reason I continue northwest to Scottsbluff, NE and take highway 71 north out of Scottsbluff. As I'm driving along the highway I come in to, and this is no hyporbole, the middle of absolutely nowhere. No cell service, no cows, and next to no buildings for the entire drive from Scottsbluff to Hemingford, NE which is a good 20-25 mile drive. Also, I could have spit and it would have landed in Wyoming, that's how close I was to being in Wyoming for the first time. Anyways, I continue on 71 about 10 miles west of Hemingford and I start to get data back. Storms had cotinued to rage to my southeast while I was taking this pointless drive. I see one in particular had gone tornado warned near Alliance, NE. At this point I didn't know it had actually produced a tornado. I start to get eaten by the foward flank downdraft of the storm with lots of rain and some marginally severe hail. I pull over to the side of the road to look over data and contemplate just letting the storm pass. As I look at the radar I realize this storm may be my last chance for the day to see a tornado and if I'm going to see it I need to get on the other side of the storm. Problem is this would put me in position to come dangerously close to the couplet on the storm, not to mention the rest of the foward flank downdraft and whatever the rear-flank downdraft (RFD) decided to spit out at me. I punch the gas after making the decision to go for knowing that every second could make the difference between me getting on the other side of the storm safely and me getting stuck pounded by the storm, and also knowing that I had already wasted to much time. The couplet of the storm was about 12 miles to my southeast and moving north at about 60 mph. I was about 10 miles west of being safely on the other side of the storm. I blast east hoping to beat the RFD. I knew I was losing ground on the storm because I couldn't go as fast I wanted (or needed) to go because I was still dealing with the rain/hail of the forward flank downdraft. I finally make out on to dry road but I notice the RFD is quickly moving in and I'm still not close to being past it. What happens next I'm not proud to admit, but the solace I can take away from it is that I knew the risk I was taking, and I didn't do it just because. The RFD eats me up. For the first few minutes it's not too bad, but it didn't take real long for it to get to the point where I have to come to a complete stop because I can't see the road in front of me due to the rain. The next part is still up in the air (no pun intended) as to what happened. A tornado was reported with this storm near Alliance, which was about 10 miles to my south. Considering this storm moved nearly due north, if there was a tornado with this storm when I interecpted, and it was still on the ground, if it wasnt what actually hit me, it was DAMN close. The reason I'm not sure what happened was because while I was stopped in the middle of the road, at two seperate times big gusts of wind impacted my car, with pieces(not branches) but broken up pieces of trees hit my car along with the gusts. I have no idea how strong the wind gusts were, but they were strong. My ears didnt pop during either impact, and now that I think about it, I think it seems more likely that it was just strong RFD winds rather than a tornado, but still, if there was a tornado on the ground still, it was NOT far away. Completely, and I mean COMPLETELY rain-wrapped. After visibility gets back to the point I can see more than a foot in front of my car I get the hell out of there. I followed another tornado warned storm up to near Hay Springs, NE and it would look good for a while but eventually I lost it due to its fast motion. The rest of the day was spent chasing a line back east. The line looked like nothing on radar, but packed quite a punch. I measured an 87 mph wind gust near Mission, SD. At this point there was no warning of any kind on it (not blaming anyone, the storm on radar looked like nothing). The 5 second running average was over 70mph the entire time I was taking measurements. After I got back in my car I swear there were a couple stronger gusts than the 87 mph gust I measured and if they were actually stronger they were likely pushing 100mph. I continue to chase the line east and measure another gust of 66 mph.Not much a ton else to say. Like I said, very frustrating chase, especially considering numerous chasers caught large, photogenic tornadoes farther north in South Dakota and North Dakota.