Woke up this morning to a dramatic shift in my target area from 24 hours prior. When I started my trip, the idea was that today would be a southwest Nebraska into northwest Kansas. When I went to bed the night before, my overnight stay in North Platte looked as if it would be my target, a milk-the-checkout day, then stumble around til the afternoon storms fired. But when I awakened, I found myself too far east. Most CAMs were now indicating initiation all the way back in Wyoming, meaning I was going to be backtracking west on I-80 to set up, likely Ogallala to Sidney.
I still milked checkout, loading up and departing right about noon, doing about 30 minutes worth of PokemonGo Pikachu raids in the vicinity before hopping on US-30 to allow myself several opportunities to stop in the small towns along the way to do some Pokemon playing. I did that all the way to Ogallala, Nebraska, hopping back on I-80 and heading to Big Springs, which was going to be my initial stopping point. When I arrived about 2pm, I made a stop at the marker for the far northeast corner of Colorado just to take a picture and update my album.
After fuel and a quick gas station lunch, I started seeing a line of storms developing across southeast Wyoming, and I knew that was going to be the play. I hopped back on I-80 with intent to meet a storm somewhere near Kimball. As I approached Kimball, the storm, non-severe, was still off to the northwest, so with it still struggling to attain strength, I decided to get on a nice overlook east of town to watch it, maybe shoot some lightning, and see if the storm would intensify.
The lightning was pretty solid, and the dark rainy background helped bring out the bolts. I loaded up my Bolt Hunter and snapped away, not snagging a ton, but the couple I got were pretty good!
As the storm approached and the rain started, the main cell had split, with a smaller cell passing west and south of Kimball while the main cell turned due east and stayed north of the city. With a deepening core in the smaller cell, I decided to give that one a look, crossing south of I-80 and setting up a few miles south of town. The core, looking impressive despite its small size, had beefed up a bit, so I waited for it to cross my road, and all-the-while, the lightning continued its show, and I continued my shooting.
As the rain again made its approach, I went on the hunt for hail, dropping south on NE-71 to a dogleg to the southwest where I matched up with the core. Of course, the beef had simmered, and it was more just a mini wind-bag than anything else. No a single hailstone to be found, but winds, probably pushing 50mph or so, at least gave me a little action despite this storm remaining below severe limits.
It only took a few minutes before the storm cleared the highway; still strugging, but it was still putting on a show with the sun glaring back at it from the west and giving the first of two very dramatic rainbows this day would see.
So I was at my crossroads… do I stay with this storm, pushing south into Colorado to try and get to an east road to catch it, go back up to I-80 to follow the eastbound storms north of I-80 which were severe, or pay attention to the storm in eastern Wyoming up near Wheatland which was severe and the most impressive looking storm on radar. I decided this storm wasn’t worth the effort, so I went back up to I-80 and decided to go east, thinking I could hit Sidney and fly north in front. I got about 20 miles down the road when the Wheatland storm just kept going. I was concerned that it would eventually move into the cooler air left behind from my earlier storms, but it was the most impressive of the bunch, and hard to ignore. When I got to the Brownson exit, I decided to turn back west. I didn’t have far to go to get to a storm that was moving at me, as opposed to trying to get around eastbound moving storms, which were hanging on the low end of severe.
So back west I went, thinking initially north out of Pine Bluffs to Albion on the Wyoming side, but as I approached Kimball, the math didn’t check out, so I needed a northerly route earlier. I also knew my window was closing, as this storm, now at it’s intensity peak with 80mph wind and golfball hail in the warning, was starting to move into the rain-cooled air of the storms before. While I was kinda disgruntled that I was probably facing a losing race and have given up on the east and south storms, which were also not doing terribly hot, but I had to try. Northbound out of Bushnell I went, a mostly dirt road option that would take me in front of the storm. I did some back and forth, eventually ending up on an eastbound county dirt road, Rd 38N, where I triewd my luck at more lightning, but didn’t have the success of the last couple stops. Friend and fellow chaser, Vince Waelti, was already camped out here, and for the second day in a row, found myself watching a storm with him, albeit much shorter duration this time around.
The cows were unafraid of the incoming storm, and as the rain moved in, we acted more afraid, packing up the gear and parting ways. The storm had weakened considerably, going from the ‘Destructive’ severe near Albion, to barely having hail with it as it approached Bushnell. But what it lacked in severe, it more than made up for in the visual WOW
I went out of my way on this chase to really take in the Golden Hour scenes on the backside of these storms. With no real indication they would intensify to anything worth pursuing, my main goal was sick scenes. The rainbow I tried hard to snag a lightning shot, but the storm was not going to give me EVERYTHING. The rainbow itself was crazy, along with the Golden Hour tint, just mind-blowing. I was not complaining! But it wasn’t over; the once hearty meatball of a storm had become somewhat strung out, with a couple small cores stretching from the initial one I was shooting, back to the northwest with a couple more, which meant more lightning was coming. I briefly pushed back into town, but wanted to milk the Golden Hour light as much as possible, so I decided there would be nothing in the core worthy of my attention, so I hopped back on US-30 and got southeast of town, looking for a good vantage point on the backside of the storms right on the edge of the rain. I finally found one about a couple miles from the WY border and set up shop.
As the storm moved away, the headliner of the day was about to take shape. Not only was I in the absolute PERFECT spot, the lighting was perfect, and the storm was perfect.. everything was perfect, and as the sun fully set, the fiery oranges and pinks showed up, illuminating the entire backside of the storm in a manner which easily ranks among my best ever stormy sunsets.
Are you KIDDING ME right now… I couldn’t believe the sight of this storm! The only thing that would’ve made it even remotely better was if I could get some lightning out of it, but I honestly did NOT care. I was snapping away, trying to find a peak moment to capture, and this was it. Even in person, the visuals were out of this world. It lasted only a few minutes, and I made the best of it!
Once the sun had gone down and the colors faded, it was time to wrap things up. Nothing to my east was catchable in a reasonable time frame, or did anything look particularly strong. I was also now within two hours of home, and that felt like a very good offer. So I hopped east to the first Nebraska exit to I-80, which was an overpass with an elevated few of the bluffs near Pine Bluffs. I stopped at the top of the ramp and set up, hoping for some cool interstate shots looking straight down the off-ramp.
The storm pushed further southeast, weakening quickly, so I loaded up and proceeded to Cheyenne, catching I-25 back down to home where I rolled in just before 10pm after a very successful chase!
This is one of my favorite chases of the year, just provided so many incredible visuals, and the lightning was easily among some of the best daytime strikes I have documented. The Bolt Hunter had dramatically changed my chasing, particularly in the day, cause it opens up the opportunity to capture lightning in a way I haven’t been able to do like this, and today’s results were fantastic given it was among my first real attempts at it. I am thrilled with the results, and will continue to see daylight lightning among my goals on low-end chase days.
