After a long and fun rest day, it was back to storm chasing. Two targets were setting up for the day:
#1) North/Central Nebraska toward Valentine
#2) Southwest Nebraska towards North Platte
This depended on changing conditions, so we headed for Nebraska with some time to think about which target to go for (since it was a decent drive to get to both targets).
After stopping for a quick lunch break in SE Nebraska, we continued heading West into central Nebraska. During our drive, two cells tried to form in the northern target area but fizzled out before maturing. This was most likely due to the lack of moisture in the northern target area for developing thunderstorms use (dew points were in the lower 50s to the north, while in the upper 50s to lower 60s for the southern target). The forecasting team for the day decided to go with the southern target and we drove for Nouth Platte.
We pulled into a park and waited for thunderstorms to begin firing up. While we waited, I walked down to the end of the park towards the North Platte River, and it was an absolutely beautiful view.
After some waiting, we noticed some towering cumulus beginning to develop to our northwest beginning to move southeast. To get a better view of this development, we headed south to find an open area with a dirt road to pull off onto. We slowly saw this little towering cumulus begin to grow and continue moving southeast, making us have to reposition a little more to the south. It was at this time we saw a lot of storm chasers on the same main road we were on, all trying to get a view of the same developing storm. It was hard at times because, even though we were not in the Sandhills, the terrain was still a little hilly.
After a third shift to the south, we were able to get a good view of the towering cumulus, which had now matured into a full-fledged supercell.
At times, we had almost seen a lowering beginning to form with this cell, but nothing was clear. Someone had pointed out that he thought he was seeing a funnel stretching from the cloud, but it was difficult to clearly make out and it looked like a rain shaft from a distance. However, upon later review of storm reports and Twitter, we found that this was indeed a tornado on the ground. This funnel was confirmed to have been in contact with the ground briefly and rotating by the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Meteorology Chase Team:
Before this storm had crossed the road we came down on, we were able to snap a nice picture of the whole group in front of the developed supercell:
It was a cool experience being able to watch this supercell develop from start to finish, but this thing was far from finished as it continued to move southeast, crossing the road we came south on. As it was to our east, someone spotted a lowering in the clouds and dust getting kicked up, both of which were exhibiting signs of rotation.
While this was not confirmed as a tornado, several other spotters surrounding this feature were also seeing the same thing as us. So in my book, I’ll consider this as our third tornado seen on the trip.
As our available sunlight was starting to come to an end, we traveled back north towards North Platte for dinner and our hotel for the evening (the same La Quinta we stayed in a few nights ago after chasing through the Sandhills). The diner we came upon was a small, quiet little diner that reminded us a little bit of the many diners in our home state. After our late-night dinner, we checked in to the hotel and went to bed ready for what the next day would bring.
Meteorologist Kyle David 
Leave a comment