Storm Chase Details
Miles Logged: 729
States Chased: MO, KS, NE
Tornadoes Witnessed: 1
Severe Risks: SPC Outlooks
Severe Reports: Storm Reports
Chase Recap:
I had no plans to chase the 12th after a string of garbage chase days. I was on work, however, and came across other chasers having car problems. I drove them to St. Joseph, Missouri arriving around 4am. We slept until noon and woke up in St Joseph with a slight risk/2% tornado overhead.
Rib Crib and Targeting Southeast Nebraska
I took Jari to the Rib Crib for lunch which was pretty good. We then decided to head north on I-29 towards Nebraska City. We were going to sit there and wait for storms to fire.
Echo top product off the Topeka and Omaha radars were showing some echos west of us, and we decided to bail off 29 in Rock Port Missouri and head west towards Beatrice. There was soon storms along I-80 near Grand Island that had gone tornado warned. We knew there’d be no way to catch them, but we continued heading that way. We took US77 North towards Lincoln while a storm started to fire near York. Plenty more towers were building to the south, so we headed west on I-80 in Lincoln.
Storms along I-80
We stopped near Milford for a couple of minutes to watch the towers building to our south. The SPC put parts of Southeast Nebraska in a 5% tornado at the 3pm update. A TV meteorologist mentioned reports of funnel clouds near Aurora in NWS Chat, so we continued further west.
As we passed York, Jari sighted the funnel cloud to our west. We stopped at Exit 348 to watch from the bridge. The funnel was a long distance from us, so we continued west on I80. After a mile or so, we could see the ground circulation and a translucent tube most of the way up. It had touched down and become a landspout tornado.
Aurora Nebraska Landspout Tornado
We raced west on I80 to get closer. The next exit was 6 miles to our west and by the time we got to the next exit, the tornado had dissipated. As least we didn’t go home empty handed this week and Jari saw his first tornado. Needle in a haystack catch on a day we didn’t plan to chase.
Avoiding Hail and Heading Home
Since we were in a rental car still, we avoided the hail on these storms, taking cover multiple times. It figures that a rock would fly up and hit the windshield on the way home, cracking the windshield. We stopped on the way home for lightning photos, with Jari getting a really nice one south of York. We had a steak dinner then departed York around 1030, arriving back in Norman about 5am.
