jetstreak: 2014--Day 3

A rough night for me as I found it hard to fall asleep. Woke last night to the sound of thunder (apologies to Bob Seger) around 4:30--this is the Midwest, after all, and nocturnal MCSs are the name of the game around here. About 8:40 we got it together and moved out. The data confirm the moderate risk for eastern Nebraska, so we're Grand Island bound. After some pre-war Cheerios and a round piece of blueberry cake for breakfast, we're off and running.

US83 looks a lot different in the daytime without all the lightning. Basically grassland prairie, with a few trees for good measure, and some rolling terrain--certainly more than one East Coast resident would expect in north-central Nebraska. That said, it's still nearly as desolate as Wyoming. Not as much fun without the lightning, although it was a bit scary, as all that lightning was undoubtedly driven by some pretty healthy upward motion. I'm still surprised (and quite relieved) we managed to beat that storm last night.

Gus and I discussed the free range cows that dot this landscape periodically. He surmised that they must stay outside in all the severe weather. I said that the hail pre-tenderizes the steaks, and lightning cooks them for you.

Gustavo: What about tornadoes?
Me: Delivery, of course.

Yeah, PETA's gonna sue me any day now.

It's quite cloudy in this part of Nebraska, and we even drove through some mist. If we don't see some sunshine, it's not going to help our cause much. Satellite imagery has clearing to the south and east (where we're headed), so that's helpful.

Random fact of the day: coal trains around here can be over 1.3 miles long.

Speaking of trains, we drove by a train carrying jet airplane fuselages (sans wings) painted light teal green. Oh the places you go and the things you see--wish we could have gotten pictures. Apparently they're used as shipping containers.

It looks like we'll be traipsing back to Valentine sometime in the near future as Gustavo left his storm-chasing (I mean drivers) license back at the hotel--fun! Of course, this complicates matters, now having only one available driver and a need to backtrack. The Day 3 has this area in a slight risk, but there's Sunday in between. Decisions decisions...

Landed in Grand Island, Nebraska to meet our chasing partners, Dave and his wonderful black lab Sierra. After conferring we headed east on I80 to Henderson. After lunch and a 2+ hour wait, we decided to chase the developing convection around 5 pm. Along with numerous other chasers, we saw some wall clouds, and Gustavo captured a very brief funnel cloud--if I didn't see the pictures I wouldn't have believed it. There were some tornado warnings around, but we never got to any of those storms. Wound up in York for a late dinner, and more waiting as a cell and a developing QLCS (squall line in normal speak) would prevent us from returning to Grand Island as initially planned. After some conferring, we decided to investigate a particular cell that was looking tornadic. Due to the continuous lightning, we were able to see several wall clouds AND some brief funnel clouds that tried on several occasions to reach the ground. The rear-flank downdraft must have been too strong, as they never made it. We managed to remain on the 'clear' side of the line, as we barely had any rain. After the storms lost their potential, we turned our attention to getting settled for the night. We raced back to York and got a hotel for all parties (dog included) JUSTINTIME to miss the QLCS as it roared through the area. It got quite windy for a while, so much so that I'm writing this in the dark due to the power outage. Good times.