6/7/2008 - Visiting Family ... and a Few Storms

With a down “chase” day on Friday, I had the chance to visit my brother and his family in Olathe, KS. I arrived at Mike’s beautiful house on Friday about 5 pm. He already had plans with his father-in-law, Zip, and brother-in-law, Steve, to head up to “Old Shawnee Days” to see the Marshall Tucker Band. Steve showed up in his in ol’ style, top-down jeep wrangler, which made for a fun ride to the show. The only problem … the vocalist for the classic “southern” rock outfit was drunk out of his mind. After a few songs … interspersed with discussion about Michael Vick, a dog name brownie, a fan club “fan” who may or may not have had kids with the guitarist, etc – we took off and headed toward a bar with about 100 microbrews on tap.

I spent the next morning enjoying the company of Stella … my niece I hadn’t seen for over three years.


After a great visit with the fam, I headed north toward Omaha in order to intercept the day’s convection. After spending a bit of time north of Council Bluffs, I migrated toward initiating convection along NE-IA border. As I arrived at the convection, it was clear it was having trouble. I then took off to York, NE (again!) where I intercepted a severe storm (a “hailer”) along I-80.

Severe storm near York, NE.

Thereafter, I blasted south toward a nighttime intercept of a large supercell that was slowly traversing the north-central Kansas area. Along the way, I was able to stop and photographically sample this beautiful sunset with the bottom of the supercell's anvil.



Arrived at the tornado-warned supercell and hung out for just a bit to watch it move across the countryside. I then drove all the way to Colby, KS, where I met my brother -- who was driving from Denver -- at the Holiday Inn Express after 1 am.