Last Friday, I ended up making the long drive to SE Nebraska and targeted Nebraska, City, NE. It would turn out that last Thursday and Saturday would prove to be the real "tornado days" with several large tornadoes in the Deep South especially on Saturday, but work obligations forced my hand to chase Thursday's setup along the warm front in Nebraska instead. Friday's chase quickly went down the tubes though as it appeared instability was lacking even though the RUC model seemed to indicate that it wasn't by late evening. A cap helped to suppress convection from forming all afternoon until after 5:00pm when the first "blips" showed up on radar as the cap began to weaken. Shear-wise this area was indeed favorable for supercells and LCL's were quite low along the warm front, but it would turn out that instability would be the limiting factor as well as low-level moisture. Nevertheless, I sat most of the afternoon in Nebraska City, NE waiting for initiation in the evening. After 5:00pm agitated cumulus (CU) could be observed as convective inhibition was weakening. This area also was hanging onto SE winds during the evening and dew points near 60°F and with the help of a subtle shortwave convective initiation began. The first cell actually developed overhead of me in Nebraska City, NE and headed off to the north/east. I preceded to jump on I-29 to catch these couple of cells staying away from the traffic congested Omaha, NE-area. On a few instances these storms looked really good, but appeared that the shear was a tad too much for them as they really couldn't maintain their updrafts for very long. After taking a few photos here and there of the disappointing convection near sunset; I began to make the long drive home with work the next morning knowing any supercells/tornadoes would be hard to come by. With that being said I've added some photos from the chase below:
(structure-wise) of the evening
Initiation was within the hour here...(above)
initiation occurring overhead
(pretty sweet)
I added a short YouTube clip just before storms
initiated in Nebraska City, NE (above)
That's about all for this chase log...April has surely been a disappointing month thus far at least for myself. Yet, it hasn't been for a lack of trying, but thus far the storms haven't cooperated since not all the ingredients have been coming together unless you chased last Thursday or Friday in the "favored-areas". The question is whether May and June will be spectacular or not when it comes to severe weather and tornadoes...I'm not convinced yet, but I remain hopeful though...
