Success in Eastern Colorado

Good morning from La Junta (pronounced "Hoonta"), Colorado. Yesterday was certainly the most successful day of our entire trip so far, observing a long-lived cyclic supercell that survived for roughly 9 hours after its birth just north of Castle Rock, CO. During the life cycle of the storm, we observed 4 or 5 different landspout tornadoes, including 1 long-lived and photogenic landspout, countless gustandoes, and 1-2 possible mesocyclone tornadoes.

As you may recall, we began the day in Ogallala, Nebraska, then traveled southwestward into Colorado, stopping for lunch/coffee/chat with an interesting coffee shop owner in Brush, Colorado, then preceded southward to Limon, Colorado. Upon reaching Limon, we took Highway 24 southwestward where the entire storm came into great view. The storm began as a high-precipitation supercell, with several surges of big, dusty RFD winds hitting us as we headed eastward down local county roads. We observed the first 2 or 3 landspouts that this storm produced approximately 5-6 miles NW of Punkin Center, Colorado, including the tall, high-constrast, tube-like landspout that developed on the northeastern edge of the RFD gust front. All the while, period RFD cuts/clear slots and wall clouds would develop further back on the southwestern flank of the storm. We continued to stairstep southward and eastward over the next few hours to stay ahead of the storm, watching it continue to cycle, developing an intense surge of RFD, attempting to tornado, occluding, and then repeating the process.

We eventually headed south of Highway 71 to Highway 96 which ran northeastward toward the town of Haswell, CO. Approximately halfway to Haswell, the storm intensified, developing one of the lowest wall clouds it had produced with rotation tightening in the cloud base. Shortly after, a dust whirl was seen underneath the wall cloud, and this was the first of two potential mesocyclone tornadoes. With the storm now paralleling us, we got east to near Haswell then pushed southward, as a new updraft south of the storm was beginning to feed in and merge with the original storm. Shortly after the merger, the storm rapidly intensified once again, developing a significant wall cloud which was draped with a mean-looking collar cloud. Often times, the presence of a collar cloud like the one we observed would often signal tornadogenesis. Around the time of the collar cloud development, cloud-base rotation became very intense/rapid, with a cone shaped lowering developing. Substantial dust then kicked up underneath the lowering, separate from the left to right moving dust to the west associated with the RFD. This was likely mesocyclone tornado #2 of the storm, but a small hill in the distance and the amount of dust associated with the storm made it slightly difficult to confirm a tornado 100%. At the very least, another landspout occurred, but given the magnitude of rotation and presence of the collar cloud, we are quite confident a mesocyclone tornado developed.

We continued to stay ahead of the storm, now pushing eastward along Highway 50 toward Lamar. A tornado was reported (and made it into the offical reports list) during this time, but seemed to only be very low-hanging and rising scud, as rapid rotation/sustained wall cloud had ended. Later reports/pictures indicate that softball to grapefruit size hail fell along Highway 50 near Hasty, CO as we observed the storm from a truck stop on the west side of the Lamar. Around dark, the storm began to shrink and become an LP supercell, with lots of the precipitation beginning to vanish, and the structure becoming more laminar/striated. Nick stopped for a few long exposure shots after dark, then we called it a day.

Target for today is not 100% certain, but will likely be in close proximity to where w

e are now, in the vicinity of SE CO, NW OK, or NW TX. Adios for now!