2015--Day 10

Fortunately for us, we won the race with the supercell from last night, but part of our victory was marred because the supercell basically quit running before the finish line.  I, for one, was glad, because the air conditioning in the room was phenomenal without having a tornado remove a wall and provide natural ventilation.

We started with a weather briefing at 11 (thank goodness) in Kearney, NE, where we got to see the Arch (sort of).  It looks like the best possibility for action today is northeastern Kansas, so we're heading east then south for Concordia.

One of the things that's frustrating for the chase team is to hear from other chasers, both about successes that you didn't have and (perhaps more) about plans for the day.  Nothing wrecks your confidence more than hearing another team's plans to head in the opposite direction as you.  We always have skill, but sometimes we lack luck.  At least good luck, that is.

Fortunately, most of us have good senses of humor, or this kind of trip would be utterly impossible. When you have 19 diverse individuals crammed together in a group, keeping your humor up is crucial.  One good rule of thumb is to use the bathroom whenever we stop (lunch, gas, reassessment, mental health, whatever), even if you don't feel the need, but such stops are not always timely.  As such, we have meteorological code words to indicate the type (flood, mudslide, volcano) and severity (advisory, watch, warning) of one's biological needs.  At least two pieces of advice from The Bucket List are proving useful: never pass up a bathroom, and never trust a fart.  Acknowledging the third piece of advice from that movie could prove tricky from several angles (I'll let you figure out what that one is).

We just passed a vehicle heading east on I80 that appears to be filming (or recording) us.  It looked as if they were aiming a camera out the window at us.  The sign on the truck says 'Belgorage,' which appears to be a Belgian chase team working on a film, 'The Heart of Supercell Storms.'  Hey, Mom, I'm in the movies!  Sure hope I didn't flip them off as we passed....

On our way to York we passed through Grand Island again, and 'island' seems appropriate as the Platte River is very high.  A Days Inn near I80 appeared to be an island in itself.

We stopped in York for what turned out to be a l o o o o o n g lunch, as we attempted to launch a radiosonde in the back of a Chinese buffet parking lot.  The sonde was not communicating well (AGAIN), and the first balloon got sweaty (or got sweat on it), so we filled a second balloon.  At long last the sonde and the balloon were ready, and we had a successful launch...for about 50 feet.  Sonde once again stopped calling, and we broke up.  So we basically sat in York, Nebraska for over two hours with nothing to show for it except two balloons and a radiosonde scattered to the wind, along a summons for loitering.  And I got attacked by a rogue soap dispenser.  At least we probably prevented some feral cats from becoming tomorrow's lunch special.  Let's hope we get some good stuff around here.

On our way south out of York we noted some good-looking cells near the Platte River east of Grand Island.  Got some pictures, with some evidence of gravity waves west of the cells in the radar to the west of the cells.  You can see that the waves initiated the convection once it crossed the river into a region of region of better CAPE, but in the same area there's a strong gradient of convective inhibition.  It'll be interesting to see which one wins.

Had the chance to try Coke Life today.  It's made with cane sugar and Stevia.  The verdict: if I had plenty of ice, and there was no real Coke available, I'd drink water.  Why is it we can put a man on the moon and a supercomputer in your pocket, but can't make a fake sugar that doesn't put a crummy taste in your mouth?  What a world.

We spent about an hour south of Concordia trying to launch another balloon, but the radiosondes are still just not that into us.  Several of the students were investigating thermals and streamwise vorticity with a frisbee and a football in the Wal Mart parking lot.  Heading south on US81 to watch for developing cells.  Shear's not great for tornadoes, but structures are always fun.

Full arc rainbow southeast of Beloit, KS.

Northeastern Kansas is ideal chase territory--flat, few trees, not too many power lines.  Too bad all the action wasn't here this week!

We just went through a fairly intense cell with some pea-size hail.  What was super cool was how quickly the precip changed intensity as we drove through the reflectivity gradient on the south side of the cell.  (Geek check--complete.)

Heading east on I70 we're tracking a beautiful pair of storms, the closer of the two looking like a mushroom cloud.  We got off the highway in order to intercept it from the southwest.  It showed significant rotation as it approached Salina, and may have even produced a funnel and dust whirl, but not a good visual tornado.  While plowing down a dirt road, we passed 'Cloud Street.'  (Sorry, no pictures.)  In the process, we sampled the rear flank downdraft (RFD) on what is probably a rural free delivery route.  A RFD on a RFD.

This storm we were chasing forced us to stop on Route 4 just before 8 pm, as we were about a mile or two from the tip of the hook echo--perhaps too close for comfort, but just a bit windy in reality.  We were able to sample the RFD once again.

We had to stop chasing this storm around 9 pm due to daylight, gas, and safety issues.  We got rather close to the rotating portion of the storm, and had to back up.  Unortunately, some jackass chose to follow us and prevent our escape.  He finally got the message when he saw our reverse lights, but he first had to put his shirt back on.  The cell really tried on several occasions to produce a tornado, but never quite made it.  Once the sun went down, the lightning became rather vivid again.  Nothing like natural fireworks.

At a brief stop in Florence, KS for gas and offloading, we encountered a family with a toddler wearing only a diaper.  He seemed happy enough, as he was dancing around with a roll of mints in his little fist.  Apparently if you're cute, you can violate the shirt/shoes/service rule as long as you have the appropriate seat covers.  We also picked up a special passanger along the way, as you can see here.

We're heading for Newton, KS for the night.  Some close calls, some great views, a funnel cloud or two, and 438 miles.  See you tomorrow.