2015--Day 9

Another hot vehicle loading in Oakley, KS, with a road briefing to follow.  We need to fetch the pods we deployed last night.  Yes, this was redundant, with the exception that today's fun and festivities will take us northeast into Nebraska.  On the way out of Oakley, we caught sight of a small clutch of cows (is that the right group term?) with one of the bulls 'asking' one of his friends out on a date.  I think the kids are getting the true Midwest experience: tornadoes and cow fornication.  All they need witness now is a cattle castration and it will be complete.

Random thought: why don't radio stations play the full version of 'Don't Fear the Reaper' anymore?

I've discovered a new love on this trip: Dust Cutter Huckleberry Lemonade.  Even comes in a cool can.  Sadly, the only place I've seen the stuff is at Love's gas stations.  Probably a good thing.

We've just discovered that the mobile mesonet vehicle is leaking gas.  Looks like we're going to find a garage in Norton, Kansas.  Turned out to be a false alarm, we're back in business.

We're aiming for Norfolk, Nebraska for potential storms this afternoon.  Conditions are looking pretty good for eastern Nebraska today.

We're heading north on US281 in east-central Nebraska, west of Norfolk.  We're under a tornado watch, so that's a good sign.

Around 5 pm local time, it appeared that the mobile mesonet truck is overheating.  We managed to get it under control, fortunately.

Around 5:30 we chased a storm east of O'Neill, NE, which never really produced more than a wall cloud.  About an hour later, we found a funnel cloud/tornado west of Plainview, NE.  After that, we targeted numerous storms that produced wall clouds or rotated on radar, but never really did anything good.  At one point we were surrounded by several supercells, but the road network gods smiled upon us and we were able to get out without harm.  There are a couple of times where we butted up against chaser convergence, but nothing detrimental.  Strangely, the storms didn't seem as electrically active as the previous two nights, in spite of really good CAPE.

We called off the chase at 9 pm local.  Looks like we're heading back to Kearney.  We drove south down US281 through a fairly vivid lightning show.  At long last we found our way to Grand Island for dinner (at 11:30 pm).  Why does this town smell like cattle?  Finally hit the road toward Kearney (our final destination) around 1 am, and of course there's an intense cell aiming for Kearney as we're heading for it.  Just glorious.  The day finally ended shortly after 2 am—again.  Three nights out of four end after 2 am, just like my days at NEWS.

Lesson learned: enhanced risk is the kiss of death, as no tornadoes reported in said area.  Final tally: 684 miles in two states, a funnel cloud, and many punch-drunk chasers.  That’s enough.