Today was the start of my second tour of the season. This was a private tour, and the guests were 2
Chinese pop stars with their entourage. In all, there were 24 people on this tour, which is enough to make one's head spin. I won't get into the dirty details about the logistics that were required to make this trip happen, but I will say that Kim George, Tempest's Guest Relations person, did a phenomenal job with booking rooms, keeping everyone happy, and figuring out how this was going to work!! This tour was under the command of Martin Lisius, and his co-leader was Dr. Bob Conzemius. We needed to pick up our guests in Boulder, CO, so we left our base hotel in Denver by 7:00 a.m. After we arrived in Boulder, it took some time for everyone to get ready. The plan was to head east into 
NE, where storms were expected to develop later. A big factor in today's festivities was going to be how Hurricane Bud would affect storm chances. Tropical systems that come from the Pacific tend to have lots of high cloudiness and decrease the atmospheric lapse rates (or how much the temperature decreases with height.) If the tropical system comes from the Gulf of Mexico, it can ruin the amount 
of high quality moisture storms in the Plains have to play with. *Please note that this information came from Dr. Bob's blog. It can be found at http://tornadobob.com/)*
After everyone was ready to leave, we began our drive east from Boulder and took I-76 out of Denver into Sterling, CO. From there, we headed north on US 138/CO 113. When we crossed the CO/NE 
border, it turned into NE 19. We continued north into Sidney, NE, where we had a quick fast food lunch. After lunch, we headed north on US 385 into Alliance, NE. Along the way, we stopped at Courthouse and Jail Rock for some photography opportunities. Martin also launched his drone for 
some aerial shots of the pop stars and scenery. We spent about 30 minutes at this site, and we were in pretty good position for later storm development. When we arrived in Alliance, we had a pit stop, and this would be our last one for a while. Storms were beginning to form east of Alliance closer to 
Hyannis. Fortunately, NE 2 is a good east-west road, and the storms were moving from west-east. We stopped about 7 miles west of Ellsworth, NE to watch a storm that seemed like it wanted to do something for us. Sadly, it became outflow dominant, and it soon petered out. However, there was 
more activity to our north and west, and this activity was moving in our direction. After another pit stop in Hyannis, we headed north on NE 61 to investigate this new development. There was very little traffic to deal with, and the Sand Hills offered some scenic views. A decent supercell came rumbling through that had a nice roll cloud associated with it. We eventually let the cell overtake us as we called the chase for the day. We drove north into Merriman, NE, where we headed east on US 
20 into Valentine, NE for the night after driving 492 miles.
border, it turned into NE 19. We continued north into Sidney, NE, where we had a quick fast food lunch. After lunch, we headed north on US 385 into Alliance, NE. Along the way, we stopped at Courthouse and Jail Rock for some photography opportunities. Martin also launched his drone for 
some aerial shots of the pop stars and scenery. We spent about 30 minutes at this site, and we were in pretty good position for later storm development. When we arrived in Alliance, we had a pit stop, and this would be our last one for a while. Storms were beginning to form east of Alliance closer to 
Hyannis. Fortunately, NE 2 is a good east-west road, and the storms were moving from west-east. We stopped about 7 miles west of Ellsworth, NE to watch a storm that seemed like it wanted to do something for us. Sadly, it became outflow dominant, and it soon petered out. However, there was 
more activity to our north and west, and this activity was moving in our direction. After another pit stop in Hyannis, we headed north on NE 61 to investigate this new development. There was very little traffic to deal with, and the Sand Hills offered some scenic views. A decent supercell came rumbling through that had a nice roll cloud associated with it. We eventually let the cell overtake us as we called the chase for the day. We drove north into Merriman, NE, where we headed east on US 
20 into Valentine, NE for the night after driving 492 miles.
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