Lots of anticipation for the
moderate risk with 15% hatched tornado in the High Plains. We began the day in Laramie with a jump over the range to Cheyenne for a target. Storms formed south of Wheatland initially, and then further south near Fort Collins. After entertaining the thought of going toward Wheatland, we pushed south to a developing supercell north of Fort Collins. While this looked good initially, it seemed to be ingesting a bit of stable air due to the laminar appearance in the lowest levels. We wrapped around to supercells dancing north of Nunn, CO. We watched the two bases from just north of Hereford. While they looked good, I was more interested in the CG barrage we were taking, as well as mammatus display off to the east. We moved east to the northwest part of the Pawnee National Grassland where we had a great view of the structure to the west. The
supercell tightened its low-level circulation and produced intermittent funnels before tornado'ing for a good 25 minutes or so. We then followed the newer, east mesocyclone north into the far southeast corner of Wyoming where we captured a ground circulation grow. Somewhat shocked initially as we never saw a condensation funnel, but it finally appeared on the left flank of the meso, arching eastward and then down to the ground circulation. Though a quick tornado, it had the appearance more of a ropeout stage rather than initial stage of a traditional tornado lifecycle. We then followed the meso northeast through Pine Bluffs, Bushnell, then north of Kimball. The supercell(s) had three prominent mesocyclones at this point, with the westward mesocyclones producing a nice trunk and cone. Surprisingly, the east meso had violent rotation at its base, but only produced intermittent ropes and narrow tubes. The most dramatic part of this scene was not the intermittent funnels and tornadoes, but the violent motion under the meso and intense RFD in the clear slot, which we were hugging. We finally called it quits east of Harrisburg and pressed onto Denver, CO for a brief overnight stay before a red-eye in the morning.
Initial storm comes off Front Range near Fort Collins. Stuck with this for a while, before bailing to south to wrap to tail-end charlie.
This "Fort Collins to Cheyenne" storm did eventually produce a tornado northeast of Cheyenne, but it was clearly not the winner this day.
Now stationed well east of tail-end storm. This is view to east toward Panoramic Point, NE. Behind me is the next picture's view.
The tail-end charlie begins to wrap up after what seemed like an hour of just spinning with no fruit.
No doubt I love structure, so I wasn't going anywhere, despite a good road west and north. Figure everybody and there mama was getting the good, close shots.
At the conclusion of the Carpenter, WY tornado, we race north into Wyoming -- this, what I believe is, anticyclonic tornado pops out of the bottom of the right-flank meso (this storm had three distinct mesos oriented west-to-east).
The "right" meso (number one) churns, with meso number two producing tornado off to the left, and meso number three along the left ridge line.
Meso number two tornado.
Contrast enhanced a bit to bring it out of the haze along the horizon.
One of a number of tornadoes north of Kimball on sr-71. Still not sure why this particular (right of the three) meso didn't plant a big one.
Scene lapses and dashcam video.
Path of the day's chase.
This concluded my trip with my brother, Ken, and his son, Noah. The pattern wasn't conducive for sustained severe, but we made the best of it ... culminating with the grand finale documented in this post. We even had to let this storm go a bit early as we needed to be back to Denver to fly out early, early the next morning. This trip featured a lot of driving -- up and down the High Plains -- but had at least three good chase days in a week, which isn't that bad.
