May 29: Southern Nebraska Supercell

Wall cloud southwest of Elwood, in south central Nebraska, on a warm humid afternoon.

Last view before a long drive to catch up to the fast-moving storm.

Wall cloud just southwest of Kearney.

Supercell near Kearney.

June 2: Kanorado Storm

On a low-potential day, a short drive towards the Kansas/Colorado state line reveals this storm as it moves east from Burlington, Colorado.

Great view from ten miles west of Goodland as the storm approaches Kanorado.

A few minutes later.

Interesting structure in a weakly rotating storm.

View from south of Goodland as storm gets blown apart (note clearing on the right).

Beautiful scene as the storm quickly dies.

June 5: Central Kansas Storms

First storm intercept near Great Bend on a day that starts with high potential and ends with a squall line.

An hour later, the strongest part of the storm rapidly approaches from the southwest.

Close-up view of a wall cloud, but the core of the storm races northeast at over 65 mph. Since it is impossible to keep up, I head south to intercept the next cell developing to the southwest.

An hour later, viewing the strongest portion of the next cell, but it also races northeast.

Last cell in the severe line of storms. I wait until I can see the wall cloud before heading east and north on farm roads to keep up. If I lose this one, nothing else looks promising for the day.

A few miles east and a quick stop to get a photo. The core of the storm is already slightly north of my position (to the west-northwest a couple of miles behind me).

Before driving to catch the storm, a quick look at the radar shows it moving northeast at 70 mph! This is the view twenty minutes later from well behind the strongest part of the storm. Overall the day turned out very different than expected, all due to unidirectional winds, i.e. little change in direction with height. If the jet stream had been a little more southwesterly, all factors were in place for a major tornado outbreak. Instead the front page news the next day is about two elephants that broke loose from a circus in a central Kansas town because the tornado sirens spooked them.