Nebraska/Kansas: June 25, 2019

The initial plan yesterday was to target north-central Kansas, where the southern fringe of favorable upper level flow approaching from the northwest was expected to juxtapose with large buoyancy. I did not have high expectations going into the chase, but a window opened up for me to chase and with this being my last opportunity to chase this month, I could not pass it up.

Initially, I stopped just north of I-70 in Kansas to keep both the northern target (closer to I-80, where low-level flow was backed) and the southern target (better low-level moisture in northern Kansas). Convection initiated early in the afternoon, in south-central Nebraska, so I adjusted north. An initial cluster of storms briefly intensified, but they were moving farther east than I could afford to go and I was fairly certain that new storms would develop farther west, if I waited patiently.

New storms did fire close to the Hastings National Weather Service office. One particular storm pulsed up near Shickley. As I approached, I closed in on a relatively narrow, rotating updraft, but the updraft was quickly being overtaken by surrounding convection.

While I did not realize it right away, a much more intense updraft was forming to the west. Based on radar data, it appeared as if it was an outflow-dominant storm cluster, rather than an isolated supercell. Satellite imagery highlighted that an intense updraft was evident, even if ground observations were a bit muddled from nearby convection and other mid-level clouds.

Just north of the Kansas border, I watched the storm approach in a field in far southern Nebraska. Mammatus could be seen all around the storm, making for quite a scene. The mammatus wasn’t particularly high contrast, but there were a few photo opportunities before convection accelerated toward the south-southeast.

My next move was to drop south into north-central Kansas. I decided to get ahead of the storm and pick a place to stop for photos. I felt that I handled this chase really well, especially compared to some other chases this year. I have often found myself spending too much time driving and not as long taking photos, as I’d like. Knowing this was a one off and likely my last chase this June, I had to give it my all. I could tell from the start that the tornado threat was relatively low, so I was not fixated on trying to find a tornado. This allowed me to take a step back from the storms to have what I consider to be some of my better photo opportunities thus far this year.

I decided to stop in Courtland, Kansas and watch the outflow-dominant convective cluster approach. I found a spot near some train tracks and watched the storm move toward me. I wasn’t paying close attention to radar, instead, I was just enjoying being one with the approaching storm.

Noticing that the storm was becoming better organized, I looked at radar and saw that the convection had, briefly, evolved into a robust supercell. Just as this was happening, a train was approaching from the southeast. The timing was just about as good as possible, as the train crossed the roadway, just as the supercell, which was showing some better low-level rotation, loomed overhead. The train stopped shortly thereafter, as if to give pause as the intense storm passed into town.

With the storm quickly overtaking Courtland, I dropped south to stay ahead, but almost as quickly as it morphed into a supercell, it was once again taking on more of a quasi-linear, outflow-dominant structure.

Overall, this was one of my favorite chases of this year. I chased in two states, tracked storms for several hours and had good photo opportunities with two different storms, in two different. It’s also true that I only saw maybe three or four other chasers during the other chase, so I largely had the storms to myself.