June 3, 2010 St. Paul, Nebraska Supercell
Had a late start to this day, it started with some trouble with my phone a couple weeks prior. Got my phone stuff taken care of and was off by 12:30pm. Arrived in Taylor, Nebraska around 4pm and storms started to initiate just to the west. I go south of Town to find a good vantage point. Check radar and see a storm on the NE/SD border, where I had originally targeted the night before. Makes me a little unsure what to do, I decide to get north as quick as I can. North out of Burwell, NE I see some very good looking updrafts south of me and figure, why not stay here if I'm already right on them. Problem was the Low Level flow was weaker further south and winds weren't backed at the surface. I watch these storms for a bit they were rotating slightly, just never really looked ready to produce. I called Mike H at this point I think seeing if that northern storm looked any good. He tells me not really and that the storm just south of me is now tornado warned.
So I quickly get south and in position to see this storm and it doesn't look real good. It was trying to get a little lowering together, but it slowly looked worse and worse. Now Mike Phelps pulled over and was showing me the radar and how this storm looked like crap on it, there were better looking storms further southwest, we decided to get southwest. I followed him most of the way since I had only my phone for data, and didn't really want to drive through a baseball sized hail core. We end up driving through a monsoon, some of the worst visibilities I've driven through, and I drive through a lot of bad conditions chasing tornadic storms, fog, ice storms, snow storms, etc. Finally get south of the storms and they look like crap. At this point I am pissed about the day, nothing like solo chasing 4 hours from home and seeing nothing lol.
I'm now south of St. Paul on a hwy and theres an updraft base to my WNW. I figure this is my last chance of the day. Starts to get itself together now developing a lowering. I have like 10 minutes of timelapse of this wall cloud that hopefully I will get uploaded by mid July. Heres a view.
Now I can tell this thing is going to try and get some cool structure. I get south and try to get ahead of it but once the sun came out from under the base I had to pull over.
The above is my attempt at a panorama, its okay, nothing great. It really shows the entire structure of the storm that was literally on top of me. This is three 10mm shots stitched together probably showing a 160 degree view.
Now I got stuck in the core after misjudging how far central city was (as it was the closest bridge over the platte river. So I lost this storm. Once I drive through another monsoon I get south of Central city on hwy 14 and clear the precip, the sun had now set and the lightning show had begun. Incredible lightning show, it was a very fun day at the end. A very successful solo chase. NOTE: the last shot is a composite of two images, One image had two strikes and one frame later i caught another.
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