Day 5: “There and Back Again” (Twice!)

Waking up from a long chase day, we had another active day of weather ahead of us for the day ahead. The Storm Prediction Center had issued an ‘Enhanced’ risk (Level 3/5) for much of Kansas and parts of Central Nebraska. With this setup, the concern was mostly damaging winds from a progressive Mesoscale Convective System that was forecasted to develop during the day, but there was a possibility for tornadoes for the day as well.

We started the day by going north towards our first target area, McCook, Nebraska. During our drive north, we passed through the area where we spotted the anticyclonic tornado from the previous day (spoiler alert: we would pass through this area and Oberlin a few more times during the day). We had stopped for lunch at another hole-in-the-wall place called Ed’s Cafe in McCook and looked at all of the weather info we could. After some thought and looking at some developing thunderstorms to our south in Kansas, we decided to go back into Kansas to check this development out. However, as we arrived at the town of Hoxie, Kansas, we noticed that this development was not as healthy anymore. We pulled into a parking lot and continued to monitor conditions for a little bit. After more discussion, we decided to head back into Nebraska to target thunderstorms that were developing over Imperial, Nebraska, and beginning to head southeast. We ended passing again through Oberlin, Kansas, and McCook, Nebraska, and then proceeded west to get ahead and west of the storms firing up over Imperial, Nebraska.