5/29/2008 - Kearney Tornado

After a restful night at the Ogallala Holiday Inn Express, we targeted the area between McCook, Gothenburg, and Holdrege, NE for initiation on this high-risk day. While our target was pretty good, convective initiation for the main supercell of the day was a bit further south and west toward Goodland. This initial convection progressed toward our target area, where the main show began in earnest by mid afternoon.

After grabbing a late lunch in Lexington, we scooted southwest toward the now well-developed supercell nearing McCook. We intercepted the storm on a gravel road (Nebraska 18) about 15 miles southwest of Elwood. This storm exhibited extreme vertical motion and a large, beefy wall cloud that appeared as though it could tornado at any time. We let the storm trail us all the way back to 283 where we had to reroute south to Arapahoe and over to Holdrege. Perhaps I should’ve played this a bit better and hit 283 earlier so I could’ve gone to Elwood and then east on 23. Oh well, I was late on the decision and couldn’t go north into the core. So, off we went, rerouting around the storm in some of the most god-awful rural traffic I’ve seen in all my years chasing Nebraska.

Looking west toward wall cloud on Nebraska 18 -- about 10 miles southwest of Elwood.

Wall cloud with all sorts of crazy vertical motion apparent at this time. This thing was moving east ... quick!

NE-18 and US 283. Wall cloud now moving over Elwood. Can't head north as you can see. Ugh.

We finally made it to Holdrege with the supercell’s wall cloud barely visible in the hazy sky to our north. We continued on US 6/34 until NE-44, where we headed north toward Kearney. As we approached Kearney from the south we could tell something menacing was going on to our northwest. Soon, power flashes were evident and it was clear that a rain-wrapped tornado was about to enter Kearney. We hurried east on L50A south of I-80 in order to stay ahead of this quick-moving beast (see map here for our route on NE-44>L50A>I-80 at Gibbon in relation to the tornado path). All the while, I was looking to the northwest watching power flashes and what appeared to be a rather large tornado rolling along US-30. We entered the interstate at Exit 279 and headed east bound. The storm at this point had some of the most amazing structure – complete with a huge vault and smooth, but sculpted updraft. [NWS damage survey indicated the tornado was a high-end EF-2 that tracked for 30 miles, from Kearney to near Wood River. See full description of “third tornado” on this page]

Tornado in Kearney. We are on Nebraska 44 at this time (5:25 pm), looking northwest toward Kearney. Power flashes evident in the tornado on the other side of the farmstead at this point.

Rain-wrapped tornado just east of Kearney -- EF-2 status at this point based on damage survey.

Tornado continues -- becoming engulfed in precip.

Exit 279 on I-80, looking northwest toward tornado. Heck of a storm structure display at this point. I only wish I had positioned for a better photo op at this point. Fast storm motion and cars all over the place limited my opportunities.

Tornado continues north of I-80 near Gibbon. Note the wall cloud and tornado to the rear of the clear slot and kink.

As we neared Grand Island, it was evident that the storm was becoming more and more HPish. We proceeded toward the York area as we tried to stay ahead of the warm air advection storms that were developing on the right flank of this intense HP supercell. Eventually radar indicated that this storm was simply too HPish to chase so I told Sharon to head south out of York toward Concordia, KS since radar indicated a beautiful supercell would apparently intersect that area in an hour or so. Unfortunately, we lost data as we headed southward on US-81 and by the time we got new radar data in Kansas it was clear that the supercell that I was hoping to intercept was slowing its forward speed and weakening. There was another supercell to the southwest, but I decided we should probably call the chase and head east toward St. Joe, MO in order to get in better position for Friday’s action in Illinois. This was probably a bad decision since the supercell to the west went on to produce a variety of tubes at sunset. Ugh!

We finally arrived in St. Joe near 11:30 pm and checked into our Priceline’d hotel on the Missouri River.