Home  2010 Chase Chase Report: Jun 3, 2010 |
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Chase Report: June 3, 2010
Location: C Nebraska |
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I wasn't confident today picking the northern or southern option over each other, so decided to head for somewhere in between and see how the models / day's observations progressed. I stopped in Taylor and waited. Some cells fired slightly south and intensified quite rapidly, but as they were clustered together I was hesitant to go after them as I felt the northern setup could be the stronger option. However, I learnt more than one lesson today!
I observed the ones closest to me for a while and thought that I should probably chase them as nothing had developed further north and it was still quite early in the day. This cluster of storms went severe warned, then tornado warned and I was still a long way away from them as they had travelled further east. Whilst heading towards them, an isolated cell developed up north in my other target area so after dithering about for a while I decided to leave the southern option and blast north.
The first picture is looking east from Taylor at the fairly young, but rapidly intensifying storm that had passed over my location. The second picture is the northern storm as I approached it from the south.
Whilst
driving north in a hurry down a very straight road, I could see a car stopped
along the highway. I should have known, and by the time I'd slowed
down, they were flashing their blues at me and indicating that I should
pull over. Ooops, the Cops. So I stopped, and this very good looking
officer was standing in the middle of the road, I put down my window and
immediately blurted out "sorry Officer, I think I might have been going
a little over the speed limit" and he says "not to worry ma'am, I
didn't have you on radar, I just wanted to make sure you didn't run over
the turtle in the road" and then he points to what I thought was his
hat on the floor (out the corner of my eye that's what it looked like!)
and its a snapping turtle, about 12" long, crossing the road! I felt
stupid for fessing up and was lucky he didn't give me a ticket for
admitting that I was speeding! The officer asked me if I had anything
in my vehicle that he could use to move the turtle but because I didn't
have anything, he was trying to guide it across the road using his
baton, every time he tried to get near the turtle it lurched at him
trying for a bite. I wish I'd taken some pictures. A very random
addition to my journey and so I learnt again, don't speak until you're spoken to!
Once
I got closer to the northern storm, I followed it for a while but it
wasn't really doing that much. I took a road option that went from
being paved, to gravel then to a two-lane sandy track with a strip of
grass in the middle. I was thankful that I had picked up a suitable car
for the road and that the storm wasn't moving any quicker but would
have been screwed if I'd have got stuck! The storm produced a couple of
lowerings, a wall cloud but nothing spectacular, I definitely should
have stayed with the southern one. The lightning was disappointing too
so as the storm moved off east, I decided to drive home.
On my way back, I did get a beautiful sunset so I stopped and took some pictures.
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After
the sun had gone down completely and having travelled quite a while, I
could see the more southerly storms were still producing lightning off
in the distance. I decided I would try and get some good shots so when I
finally got to an ideal location, I stopped and tried to set my camera
up.... one small problem.... the part that fixes the camera to the
tripod was missing - I'd left it at home! By this point I was so
annoyed that I just decided to enjoy the light show whilst driving back
to Omaha. Most of the CGs were bright orange and very frequent so I
knew someone somewhere must be getting some great pictures. It just
wasn't me! Another lesson, check what your packing and that you have
everything you need!
Click here to see the SPC reports for this day
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