6/4/2008 - Messy Nebraska Supercells

Wednesday was the first of two days of potential high-end severe weather on the Plains. Since I’m planning to meet my brother at Denver on Saturday, I thought this would be a nice opportunity to get a couple chases under my belt on the way to the Front Range. I left DeKalb by 8 am with an initial target west of Lincoln, NE. After 500+ miles I neared my target and things were looking good. In fact, a lone supercell had formed north of Lexington along I-80. I raced westward in order to intercept this supercell; unfortunately, by the time I got to the area near Kearney, more cells were developing along the Interstate. From this point onward, the storms (many of which were supercells) never got their acts together. I played the inflow notches of several of the supercells were I could tell the inflow juice was of the low octane variety … i.e., things felt a bit too cool for tornadogenesis. In addition, the storms were continually being undercut. I followed the supercells eastward along I-80, where several of the storms finally coalesced into a bow echo northwest of Lincoln and raced eastward. I made it to Lincoln as the bow struck, where it produced marginal severe wind gusts with heavy rain in my location.

Messy convection -- tornado warned at this time -- east of Grand Island

A wall cloud forms (center) along with a wet RFD (to the left).

I checked into a hotel room in Lincoln and met up with former NIU students, Victor and Dustin, who were out chasing as well. We noticed a beautiful lightning display was setting up just east of Lincoln so we headed eastward to try to get away from the city lights. Once we got on the outskirts of town, we were treated with on hell of a sight. This bow echo complex was producing some of the most vivid anvil “zit” lightning I’ve ever witnessed – this convection needed a trip to the storm dermatologist! I equate it to being stuck inside one of those plasma lamp glass balls that you used to see at the Spencer “gag and gift” store in the mall. This produced continuous lightning – never stopping for even a second! Truly an amazing spectacle … and, unfortunately, one that is not handled well by photography.

A couple pics of the anvil zit lightning just east of Lincoln.

Lesson of the day: arrive late to your chase destination. The best storm of the day actually formed in southwest Iowa and went on to produce a couple tornadoes. If I had left the house later, I probably would’ve intercepted this lone supercell. Oh well.

When we got back to the Holiday Inn Express, this fella was asleep in the stairwell. He had a phone up to his ear but was sawing logs. Must've been a very boring conversation with the wife or girlfriend! I do recall that he was downing a few silos as I was checking in. Hmmm ...