May 23 log

Today we started out in Columbia, MO- we knew we had to get all the way into eastern CO-so we got up at 8 AM and blasted west on I-70. On the way we got some data, and the general target did not really change much, so we continued westbound until we got to Oakley, KS. At that point we had a choice- according to out intrepid nowcaster Mike Umscheid, there were storms firing on the Palmer Divide, but after some consultation we decided to target new storms/towers that were a lot closer to us, west and north of Burlington, CO, Upon arriving in Burlington, we observed a supercell wannabe to our NW- it was pretty much rain filled, but has a little bit of structure. At he same time a hard updraft could be seen due north of us on a storm near Wray, CO- and we decided to target that cell. As we moved north, we could begin to see that this was an HP supercell- and at that time a tornado warning was issued. However, we never saw anything that looked to be tornadic- I did get a few decent photos of the structure, such as it was. We followed the storm east towards St Francis, KS, but heard of a new tornado warning back to the west- so we went back towards Idalia, CO. At that time is when we saw a pretty decent wall cloud, that took on a bowl shaped appearance for a brief time. But soon after that the storm died, and after meeting up with Jim Leonard and John Monteverdi we blew off the chase and headed for Burlington for dinner and a motel room. At a steakhouse in Burlington we met up with Cloud 9 tours as well. We are staying at the Chaparral Motor Inn in Burlington- a very nice AAA rated establishment, with pretty cheap rooms that have W-Fi internet access.

I will post pics at a later date- nothing was all that great anyway (although we were treated to a nice continuous lightning show after dinner off to the south).

Matt