Frustration

Best regards from Sidney, Nebraska, where frustration and a feeling of underachievement is currently the main fixture of the evening. We departed Ogallala around midday, traveling down I-80 to North Platte where we stopped for lunch. At this time, our main idea was to monitor a warm front across northern Kansas, moving northward, and an outflow boundary across north-central Nebraska (originating from thunderstorms near the Nebraska/South Dakota border). We felt the boundaries would merge early in the afternoon, eventually becoming one "effective" warm front, which would serve as a focus for thunderstorm development later in the day as an upper-level shortwave trough ejected eastward out of the Rockies. By mid-afternoon, these boundaries had indeed merged and had aligned themselves across central Nebraska. Several thunderstorms had begun to develop along or just north of the boundary north and east of Broken Bow. It was uncertain at the current time whether these storms would remained elevated (based higher up in the atmosphere, with little threat to produce a tornado) north of the warm front, or become rooted in the boundary layer (based in the lowest few thousand feet of the atmosphere, with a much greater chance of producing a tornado). The environment right along the warm front exhibited very high-levels of wind shear in the lower portions of the atmosphere, which was very conducive to tornado development if the storm was indeed based in the boundary layer. We continued to travel eastward and northward out of Broken Bow, trying to get a better glimpse at the now rapidly-intensifying supercell to the north, but substantial low clouds in the vicinity of the warm front made it hard to see much. Around this time, the storm became tornado-warned, with a few confirmed tornado reports beginning to trickle in north of Ord, NE and west of Greeley, NE. We continued to chug eastward as quickly as safely possible, attempting to get east of the storm to look back into the storm's "notch" and try and get a glance at the strong circulation/possible tornado that was likely embedded deep in the rain/precipitation of the now extremely High-Precipitation Supercell. This was not meant to be, however, as an extreme amount of storm chase traffic slowed our progression eastward down Highway 22. Additionally, we began to take very heavy rainfall and strong winds from the Rear-Flank Downdraft of the storm, making it impossible to see virtually anything. As we continued eastward along Highway 22, still caught in the intense rainfall/wind of the very wet RFD, I began to grow concerned that a new circulation could potentially develop south and east of the current one to the north. If this occurred, we could be a bit too close for comfort, and given the rain/wind and lack of any real visibility into the business end of the storm, we decided to turn around. We then abandoned our original storm, and observed one additional supercell northeast of Lexington, NE. This storm tried its hardest to do something interesting for us as it crossed the warm front, briefly developing some fairly decent low-mid level rotation. The storm then quickly weakened after crossing the warm front as it was quickly undercut by dense cold air and began to die, but not before affording us some decent structure photos and a good lightning display.

All in all, today was quite frustrating, as really only one storm in the entire state of Nebraska managed to consistently produce tornadoes on what looked to be a better day for tornadoes. Had we arrived roughly 5-10 minutes earlier to our initial storm, we may have observed one of the tornadoes it produced, but it wasn't to be. Chasing along warm fronts in very moisture-laden environments is not one of my favorite things to do, as I prefer High Plains/Front Range upslope storms much more due to their chaser-friendly nature, and dryline storms due to their propensity to become beasts, but also maintain good visibility of the storm thanks to their often isolated nature. All in all, a very frustrating day.

We're currently holed up at "Sleep For Less" in Sidney, Nebraska, a rather quaint local mom and pop motel just north of I-80 with clean rooms and low rates. Early target area for tomorrow will be NW Nebraska and SW South Dakota as upslope flow develops during the afternoon hours and moisture streams back into the High Plains and toward the Black Hills. Tornado potential doesn't look overly high for tomorrow, but photogenic supercells may be in the works. Goodnight for now. Pictures from today to be uploaded tomorrow.