Well it has been an exciting week in Tornado Alley! Tuesday, June 3rd, was by far the most active. We began our day near Grand Island, NE as storms started to brew. By the late afternoon, we were closing in on a tornado warned storm near Ord, NE that was moving east. Although we were approximately 10 miles away from the tornado warned storm at one point near Central City, NE, our data went down and we had to bail out for our safety. As we bolted for the cars, a few members from our group thought they glimpsed a funnel. Just as we were pulling away, the local sheriff was driving towards the storm. Meanwhile, a storm report from the "local law enforcement" indicated that the tornado crossed 4 miles away from our location! We were able to catch this strong rotation before we bailed to a safter location:
One of the reasons we left our location is that the tornado may have been "rain-wrapped" which makes it very hard to see the funnel of the tornado. Unless one is dangerously close to the circulation, the tight rotation is oftentimes only able to be viewed via radar. Therefore, it is crucial to have a weather radio or a local radio/TV station on when these storms approach. Here is the radar from the supercell storm:
Moving on to Wednesday, June 4th, we were unable to intercept tornadic storms in Colorado due to their late initialization. At approximately 11:30 PM MDT, a tornado warned storm was only 30 miles to our north of Lamar, CO, but we did not chase due to darkness and safety concerns. However, it was such a prolific lightning show that even the local law enforcement passing by stopped for a little and watched it with us. I'll have more stories over the next week, so keep checking back!
