I started the day off in Denver, CO. I wasn’t totally sold on the day and did not commit to the chase until the morning of; however, I did manage to clear my schedule, just in case! After looking at the morning observations and seeing a nice tongue of moisture racing through central Kansas, I was beginning to see that the northern target area just might get it done. Given that the shortwave oriented north/south leading to southerlies at 500 mb and the surface winds were easterly across western Nebraska, the northern target of extreme northwest Kansas and southwestern Nebraska seemed very, very appetizing.

Since I was on the fence on the go/no go decision, I had not lined up a chase partner. Besides, some of my best chase days were by myself, so I am not hesitant when it comes to chasing by myself. I left Denver around 8am MST in route to Colby Kansas via I-70. Upon arriving in Colby, I grabbed some lunch and found some WIFI. I sat there for two hours monitoring the progress of the moisture transport. After doing some hand analysis of the surface maps, all indications were showing that the southwest Nebraska area was going to be the place to be. My nowcastors, Paul Robinson and Danny Cheresnick were also pushing for the southwest Nebraska area too. This was a tough decision for me still given that there was a very broad, good target area and a very small, great target area. Finally, I pushed myself to push aside my doubts and virtually abandoning anything that formed in southwest Kansas and moved up my direction. My new target was Imperial, Nebraska.

Once arriving in Imperial, NE, I refueled and found some WIFI again. While monitoring the North Platte and Goodland radars, some cells developed in northeast Colorado moving just west of the CO/NE border. As the storms approached Wray, CO, the cell became severe warned. The cell was kind of pulsing up and down. Several other cells developed in northeastern CO and none of them seemed to want to dominate and become “the cell.” I decided not to bite on it quite yet. There were also several cells that had developed in northwestern Kansas. The most interesting cell was a cluster of strong cells near Colby, Kansas. This cluster was right on the edge of the moist axis (low 60 td’s). The other cells near Wray, CO were firing right on the dryline and had only mid to upper 40 td’s. This seemed a bit dry and bases might be elevated even given the elevation of northeastern CO.

So I made the decision to back track back towards Colby, KS to intercept the cells near there. I traveled southeast on US 6 and then turned south on US 83 heading towards Atwood, KS. Once I crested the ridge that runs along the Frenchman Creek, I noticed that a cell west of the Colby cells was looking very healthy. It had a very hard, crisp updraft, nice crisp anvil and even had a small, ragged wall cloud. After taking some pictures, Danny called me and said that there was a cell west of the targeted cell that really was beginning to look good and showed signs of slight rotation. That was all I had to hear! I jumped back in my car and turned around heading back to Imperial, NE.

As I was heading back along US 6, the storm was beginning to get its act together. The storm was an LP supercell and actually had almost no rain associated with the core region. Here are some photos east of the storm.



I continued west on US 6 until arriving in Imperial. From there, I took 15A about 3 miles west of Imperial, stopping there to grab these pictures. The supercell now had a rfd carving around the meso.



I turned north on a unmarked farm road, heading back to US 6. I then turned west on 6 and continued until I was 6 miles west of Imperial. The meso had now become fully occluded and was a spectacular site to behold with the sun setting. The pictures don't even do it justice!



The meso was now beginning to shows signs that it was going to produce a tornado. The occulusion was well displaced from the supercell now and figuring that if it produces, it will be a short-lived tornado. So I proceded north on a dirt road just to get a nice back-lit tornado. I was planning to just get a quick little tornado and then get back to imperial and paved roads. About two miles north on the dirt road, the meso finally produced a tornado that lasted only about 30 seconds.



After watching this tornado, a new meso had developed to the north of this one. It had a very low wall cloud, with fingers touching down every 10 seconds or so. Here is an image of one of the fingers.



So seeing this, I proceded further north on the dirt road (big mistake!). I continued until I was around 8 miles north of US 6, where the dirt road then promptly turned to mud! I could not continue anymore, so I got out and took these pictures.




While this was going, the next meso had developed to the northeast of this. This is the meso that would go on and produce the Grant tornadoes. I didn't document the grant tornado very well at first because there were two tornadoes on the ground at once (the multi-vortex wall cloud and the meso that produced the Grant tornadoes). The photos of the Grant tornado jump from a small cone to a very large stovepipe. This sequence of pictures is roughly 6-8 miles to my north.




I continued to take pictures, I could see the wedge tornado illuminated by lightning flashes. However, what I didn't notice while watching the Grant wedge was the satellite tornado that rotated around the wedge. The small satellite tornado rotated around the west side of the wedge, becoming very large itself. It was quite shocking when I looked at my pictures after I headed home for the night to see two large tornadoes rotating around, I wish someone had recorded my reaction! Anyways, here are a couple of pictures documenting that.




To see the full sequence of the satellite rotating around the wedge, Click here.