High Plains Tornadoes: June 12, 2017

The storm chase took a while to get going, as relatively high cloud bases limited the tornado potential until late in the afternoon. Once that happened, it turned into one of the top chases of my career.

Above are clips from the first tornado that I witnessed on June 12th in northern Weld County, Colorado, essentially from start to finish. The chase got a bit tricky after storm damage blocked my preferred route, but within an hour I was back on track.

The chase then brought me into the southwestern portion of the Nebraska panhandle, where I saw at least two brief tornadoes, within a cluster of supercells. By the time the chase was over, I saw at least three tornadoes, including the first of my career in Colorado. The chase overall, including number of tornadoes, variety of storm structure and ability to overcome challenges (detours, tricky road networks and limited cell/radar data) was certainly my best of 2017 and one of the best of my career.