6/14/2009 - Denver Airport Storm

Sunday featured a couple of areas of interest -- an upslope play similar to previous days and a more substantial severe threat across far southwest Kansas. I chose to play the first option since I was in the Denver area already. Things looked promising early on as a storm fired (as usual) along the Palmer Divide, but it dissipated as it moved toward Limon. I spent some time along I-70, between Bennett and Deer Trail, trying to figure out whether to head east and south in order to intercept new stuff coming off the Palmer or head back west toward Denver where new storms were firing. I waffled, but eventually shot west as a storm near Denver was tor warned. I intercepted the storm as it approached Denver International Airport. I followed it north to Prospect Valley, before cutting east after it appeared to struggle in a meager CAPE environment. I then tried to wrap around a slow moving squall line along and north of I-70, but by the time I got ahead of it, the thing kind of crapped out. In addition, visibility was poor due to a pesky low-to-mid level stratus deck. All-in-all, I should of probably pressed south of Limon after the Denver storm since there appeared to be a couple of small supercells that developed near Punkin Center toward late evening. Oh well. The storm near Denver did provide some interesting views -- it was very cool watching planes navigate/land/take-off as the storm approached. Below are a few pics and a time lapse video.

Storm over Denver International Airport.

Another view, with a couple mid-level banding features.

Click on the image and you will see a plane taking off in the center-right.

Time-lapse video of the storm of Denver Airport. A higher resolution video is available for download here.