May 24 log

We had a pretty productive day on Tuesday in eastern Colorado. We started the day in Burlington, and after examining the data, we decided that we should be a bit farther to the north and west for initiation. We went to the public library in Yuma and saw on the radar that some strong cells were developing to the northwest near New Raymer. We headed west towards Akron (bad road construction on the stretch of highway between Yuma and Akron). Upon reaching Akron, were greeted with the sight of a menacing shelf cloud to the north and west. We went a bit south of town, and set up the tripods as the storm approached. It did have a tornado warning on it at this time, but was obviously HP and outflow dominated. Still, as we watched, a kink developed on the gust front, and fairly rapid rotation could be seen at cloud base, and a lot of dust underneath. Tornado? Sustained? who knows- but it was an interesting feature nonetheless.

We then had to retreat south and give up on this storm, but we could see on the radar and visually that a new cell with a rock hard updraft was to our southeast. So we booked in south and then east towards Idalia. As we got underneath the updraft, we could see that it was supercellular- and after getting by with only a few clicks of marble hail , we were treated to a nice structure show- for a brief time there was a high based wall cloud with some rotation, and some dust was visible underneath- weak tornado? Perhaps. We dropped south for some structure shots as the storm began to gust out- then blasted to Burlington. At that point, after looking at radar, we decided to go east to Goodland, then drop south to catch some tail-end charlie action, We did see some nice outflow features while approaching Goodland- and several downbursts and a few gustnadoes.

We dropped south from Goodland- and upon reaching Tribune, decided to head west. When we got to near Towner just across the border, we could see that the storm on the south end of the line was an HP beast from hell. Luckily we had a due south option at this point, and the supercell was moving due south- so we were able to keep out of its path, It was getting dark at this point, but we did get a few pics and video. When we got to Holly, the structure at this point was jaw dropping- a many tiered layer cake, but it was so dark it precluded any photography, but I did get some video.

Then we decided to head for Lamar for the night. However, there was a severe squall in the way- but we decided to punch the core, as the hail was only supposed to be about 1 inch. near Grenada we pulled off to the side as the hail and 70 mph winds hit- the hail was intense, but not bigger that marble size. After it passed, we headed to Lamar for dinner, where we met Dave Gold and crew in the restaurant.

I will post a link to pictures later.

Looks like a cold front will shut down chasing for a while- so it is off to my uncle's house in Albuquerque for a few days to wait for the pattern to change.
Photos here

Matt