On May 28, we started the day in Salina, KS. If we would have had the ability to tell the future, we could have stayed there all day and see an EF-4 tornado tear through not too far from there. Alas, part of the fun of storm chasing is not knowing what is going to happen. During the morning's weather briefing, we decided to head NW toward the CO/NE border. Not only would we be in position for the next day, but it appeared that discreet supercells would be more favorable in that vicinity. For those who are not familiar with weather jargon, a discreet supercell is an ideal chase target, because it has no other neighboring storms to compete with for the available ingredients (moisture, instability, shear, lift). In other words, a discreet supercell is a greedy storm, and storm chasers LOVE greedy storms!!!
Getting back on track, we stopped for lunch in Hays, KS, at a neat little sandwich cafe. After eating and analyzing the current data, we continued on our current course. As we got near Burlington, CO, a perky Cumulus (Cu) field was starting to show up on the visible satellite. When a chaser sees this, he starts getting more excited, because it shows the atmosphere is starting to become more unstable. Our tour leader, Bill Reid, chose to head north out of Burlington on U.S. 385. We drove through scenic Yuma county and saw the flat part of CO that not many people know about (ie. no mountains!!!). Eventually, we intercepted a rather interesting cell near Haxtun, CO, and it started forming a "bowl" shaped base. This was a sign that the storm was getting more organized, and it would eventually begin rotating, turning into an absolutely beautiful supercell. As we drifted north towards Julesburg, CO, it took on a mothership appearance. We were also fortunate to witness an event known as "alternating vorticies", which was simply 2 vorticies spinning around each other in the cloud. As we followed the storm out of Julesburg and headed east to stay ahead of it, we began experiencing some golf ball sized hail and frequent lightning. Once we were a good distance in front of the cell, we stopped multiple times to take pictures. As the sun began to set, the storm grew weaker, but still maintained its structure until the very end. Our total mileage for today was 513 miles, and we found rooms in Ogallala, NE.
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| Haxtun, CO |
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| Julesburg, CO |
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| Julesburg, CO |
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| Julesburg, CO |
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| Julesburg, CO |
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| Julesburg, CO |
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