Nebraska Supercell: May 10, 2018
The “southern strategy” paid off on Thursday, as I chased a relatively isolated supercell from far northeastern Colorado into southwestern Nebraska. Around mid-afternoon, multiple thunderstorms developed in the northeastern Colorado vicinity, but it took some time before one storm in particular on the tail end (Charlie) of a cluster of storms became better organized. I stuck with my original plan and favored an area that would have a higher likelihood of seeing photogenic storms, even if it meant waiting while other storms were ongoing, elsewhere.
I first started watching the storm, up close, just to the south of Julesburg, CO. The storm did not have much of a photogenic appearance from the north and with its hail core passing over US-385, I decided to wait for it to move eastward. I was grazed by the northern edge of the storm and witnessed some relatively soft hail for a time. Most of the larger pieces ranged from about dime to penny-sized, but it’s likely that a few stones were a bit larger. Some splattered on the windshield and may have been marginally severe (1-inch in diameter), but I was more concerned about getting photos of storm structure than investigating hail.
A short time later, I was able to basically parallel the storm’s track from west to east along SR-23. For the next half hour or so, I seemingly had the whole storm to myself and it was beginning to shape into a well-defined supercell thunderstorm. Even though most of the rotation was elevated (no imminent tornado threat), it still put on a show for a while.
Eventually, the storm’s appearance became increasingly ill-defined and I almost called it a night, before I decided to hang with the storm a little bit longer, just in case. Right around sunset, as I was getting ready to end the chase, I caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a ground circulation to the north. Near Wallace, it appears that I may have witnessed a brief landspout. Since I was relatively far away and the photo is not conclusive, this does not officially give me a first tornado on the year, but for the record, this may have been the landspout that others had reported to the National Weather Service around the same time:
