Just realized that my last venture, August 19, was my 1,000th career log! Of those, 577 were chase logs, the other 423 were work/spotter ventures. A crazy number of logs. That chase also put me at #5 highest annual mileage. I will lay it all out in a later log, but wanted to acknowledge the milestone. 1,000 career logs over 30 seasons!
Yeah, that was a mistake… unfortunately I kinda wussed out as I wasn’t feeling 100%, and as the day drew on, I lost the energy and motivation, so by 3pm, when things started to fire in the Black Hills (despite the models saying otherwise), I was already too far gone. That storm ended up being a long-track supercell that produced 3″ hail, awesome lightning, and yes, even a damn tornado near Potter, Nebraska near I-80, which I could’ve made even leaving later when it became apparent that storm was in it for the long haul. That storm tracked due south from border-to-border in Nebraska, then made it to Sterling, with tornado warnings on it for over an hour, with one confirmed near Potter. The lightning was top-notch from what I saw as well. So big wiff on me there. Unfortunately having been on the road the four days prior, and the ongoing gut issues, I just ran out of gas. Had I committed earlier in the day, I probably would’ve been fine just sucking it up, but I let it catch me, and by then, it was easier to commit to not going. Oh well… can’t make ’em all.
Storm chances today and tomorrow locally, nothing too noteworthy, but its there. No major plans to chase, but should something play nearby, I will give it a go.
An answer, that as one of my current favorite songs by Harem Scarem is titled, is ‘Slowly Slipping Away’. Truthfully, what a great album they did there in the early 90s at the tail end of the hair band era (damn you, grunge)… anywoo, I digress…
It was about 36 hours ago when today looked like a sure-fire chase day, but similar to just about every day this past week, things just unraveled, this day a bit slower than the earlier days this week. Honestly, if I had it to do over again, I would’ve chased yesterday and sat out today as yesterday fell into the over-performing mode compared to the models, which have had an ass time resolving the convective potential of every day this past week. Last night, there were glimmers of intent to fire storms late afternoon, perhaps after 4pm, across the Black Hills and slide them southeast into northern Nebraska, but suddenly overnight convection popped into chat and that has thrown a huge wrench into things for today. Now, as the last few morning runs have indicated, nothing is certain with the morning showers and storms which are currently ongoing from North Platte northward and even new development near Julesburg, all of which does nothing but prolong the recovery time, and thus delay storm initiation further and further into the day, and possibly into the night.
Shown above are the latest HRRR models runs for 8PM and 2AM MDT (9PM/3AM CDT) when models start to initiate the two rounds of storms. The first, which if you eliminate the time, is great due to its location there just north of I-80 in the southern Nebraska Panhandle, meaning it’s less than a 3 hour shot to get up there. The bad news, it’s 8pm. Optimistically, storms COULD fire at or just before sunset, leaving a short daylight window available before darkness sets in. Now, if you’re hunting lightning, which I will not rule out as being Main Mission #1, that may not be a bad thing, and could offer some decent lightning photography opportunities, which if I am being honest is the sole reason I am even keeping this scenario in mind. Right now, there is little to NO indication of initiation closer to say 6pm, which does put a big hurt on potential to head up that way. But the lightning scenario, and perhaps some quicker than expected recovery could still yield a reason to make the run up there come about 3pm, which right now, is slated as my cut-off.
The second round of storms, which likely does not come into play, would be the overnight round, likely the stronger of the two rounds, developing after midnight and sliding southeast toward I-80. Given the after-midnight timing, it’s highly unlikely that factors into my plans, other than the chance such a system is far enough west to impact, say North Platte, where I would probably hunker down for the night. Even in that scenario, history teaches me that I would unlikely put forth any major effort to do anything with those storms, meaning they’d have to actually awaken me from slumber to where I would go out in my pajamas and shoot from the hotel cover out front. Not something I would put any money on me doing.
So right now as of this writing, it’s just after 10am; waiting for the 1630z SPC outlook to probably tell me nothing, but as of now, I sit at a GENEROUS 50% chance to go. Every hour the CAMs continue to lack initiation before 8pm is another 10% drop; by 3pm, that chance will sit at zero. I will need a solid sign of convection ongoing BEFORE 7pm to keep my hopes alive… right now, that’s not happening. 21z runs will be the final ones to convince me.
First blog entry using my phone, so forgive.. well, whatever happens that is odd with this entry haha I’m at Starbucks while my car is in the shop. With about 233 miles left on my 100K warranty, I drove straight in from last night’s hotel to the shop to address a few items to be covered before I turn over 100K. With some non-covered items to tend to, I’m gonna get about $3000 worth of work for ~$1100, so I’ll take it!
Two quick notes… first, yesterday’s chase was pretty damn good. I saw what was easily the most dramatic display of hail fog I had ever seen. While I did capture it, I spent about half the time the display was in peak just gawking over it. I’ll write more of it the log, but that was easily the highlight of what was otherwise a pretty meh series of days. I had barely any real motivation to chase yesterday, almost to the point of cutting my losses and heading straight home, but I stuck it out and got what was arguably one of the best scenes of the season. It’s amazing to me that even after 30 years of doing, I can still see stuff that not only just leaves me in awe, but is something I have not seen before.
Tomorrow is on my radar, although the runtime runs have kinda stomped on the central Nebraska setup. It is the last ‘real’ chase opportunity of this stint, which may carry more weight than it should, so we’ll see if I pull the trigger. Given the length of time I was on the road this week, I may not be so inclined to roll out. But we’ll see. It is on the outer edge of my day-of driving bubble, so I can sit on it til morning.
My car should be ready here in a couple hours, so I’m gonna hoof around, walk off the Starbies treat I just sipped down, and head home to rest the week’s laundry and enjoy an evening at home and see what direction tomorrow leans.
Yesterday provided the goods, but I let impatience get the best of me as storms out west eventually did fire, some packing quite the punch, but the storm of the day blew up around sunset about 90 minutes and change north of Kearney, becoming an impressive supercell that did carry a tornado warning for the better part of an hour or so. Unfortunately, it was far enough from me here in Kearney where I knew the likelihood of it maintaining itself as a supercell was unlikely, so I opted for the lightning consolation prize from about 40 miles or so south, which provided some great imagery. I had the thought that I could meet it in Grand Island, but it got pretty strung out as other storms began to develop across central Nebraska. I didn’t do much else with it after the lightning. I didn’t miss much, a few significant wind reports back west of North Platte (where I spent a majority of my afternoon waiting hours), but I basically found myself in the storm hole and was too far from any of the action areas to salvage the evening, so the lightning was it for me.
Today has fallen apart, tomorrow not looking so great, either. It’s up for debate how and IF I even play today. I could cut my losses and return home, which would still allow me the eastern Colorado play tomorrow. I could also lean into the long-shot northern Kansas play this afternoon, which would dump me on I-70, also giving me the Colorado play tomorrow. Few models are doing ANYTHING with today, and if you go by those alone, they would give more potential to western Nebraska (and that’s a low-bar ‘more’, BTW). Again, ending up in North Platte tonight would not be the end of the world for tomorrow, a simple two-hour drop into Wednesday’s target, so it’s a valid target to play out west today. But honestly, I could see today being down, maybe just point myself down to Hays, hunker down there this afternoon and if something fires in northern Kansas, you’re pretty set for positioning, then see how Wednesday shakes out.
That being said, today is a definite milk-the-checkout, which will include a shower and gear reset, then decide from there how to play today into tomorrow. Right now, I’m not completely writing off today, certainly ‘more excited’ about tomorrow, so I am leaning heavily into the position for tomorrow while keeping today’s slim chances a float.