Tony's Blogbach, Between the Isobars

While I have done my fair share of whining about the overall feel of the 2026 chasing season, one of the brighter themes to this year has been the over-achieving of the lower-end, marginal days.  Yesterday was another tickmark in that tradition with another visually stunning storm that I was able to stay with for several hours.  This year is definitely gonna be the year of the shelf cloud, and yesterday’s structure didn’t disappoint.  I’ll be the first to say that once you’ve seen ten shelf clouds, you’ll see ten more, but they never fail to make for good pictures.  I always have said I wasn’t a structure guy, but it’s something that grows on me a bit more and more.  Maybe not to the point where I go out of my way for it, but on days I go into with a very low bar, having multiple opportunities to document good structure definitely makes for a good day.  Add in some hail and some hurricane-force gusts and you have a full day.  But… wait, there’s more!

One thing I NEVER EVER EVER tire of shooting… LIGHTNING!  And I got a treat out of last night.  I called my chase early evening after my storms got to I-76 northeast of Sterling and began to weaken substantially.  Given gas prices are cheaper in Nebraska, I basically gave those storms til Ogallala to shape up, and it was there I dinnered up and fueled up ($3.79 for 87 verses $4+ in Colorado).  On my way back, some garden variety storms had developed along and south of I-76 in far northeast Colorado.  As I approached I-76 in Nebraska, I could see flashes, which would reveal some low-end anvil crawlers as I got closer.  Occasionally, I would see something that COULD be good, but nothing blowing my socks off.  Once I passed Julesburg, I would see the frequency of flashes increase, and while still low end, there were more hints that it COULD be worth a stop.  After one or two “ooo, that was good” crawlers, I decided to stop at the next exit after Julesburg, which was Ovid, and camp out on a hill a couple miles south of I-76.  From there, I gave my 14-24mm lens its biggest workout of the year, and for about 45 minutes, I captured a solid handful of keepers.  As usual with a good lightning shoot, I was pretty elated!  The results were great, and the crawlers gave way to some CG action, which was an added bonus.  I shot there til about 10pm or so, rolling to Brush for a bathroom stop before finishing the drive home, rolling in about 12:30am.

Another awesome, low-end day to add to the list.  Today, while not as juicy as yesterday, offers another opportunity for some fun, this time along I-70.  I’ll probably depart here about lunchtime and head down to Bennett to start, following storms out I-70.  Friday is also a low-end day, but looks even less than today, so I’m not as sold on Friday.  I also have the burning desire to start my Football season, as Washington plays Miami in their first pre-season game of 2026.  Ideally I would do that on my couch, but if there is enough to warrant a play on Friday, then I could be convinced to stream that from the road instead.

That said, great day yesterday with awesome structure, and fantastic lightning, which continues to grow a collection that was sorely lacking heading into the summer months and is now becoming a major highlight of this season.

Finally finished a little feature on the site… for a while, I have organized my chase logs into three categories, NO REPORT, IN PROGERSS, and FULL WRITE-UP.  The working idea when I recreated the site was to mirror a similar log book that I had in earlier editions of the site where EVER log would be added to the annual page whether or not a write-up was intended.  That way I showed a complete log book each year with all relevant stats posted to the chase logs.  That also meant not having to create specific pages for logs that were total busts, or just didn’t warrant a write-up.  Back then, I didn’t have the know-how to filter the blank logs from the page, so one had to surf.

Then came this new site, and I wanted a similar look to the log book, but finally, two years after launching this site, I was able to make younger Tony’s vision a reality.  Now I can allow users to choose one of three display options… SHOW ALL, which is the default and shows all logs that have been published, whether they will have a write-up or not.  The NO REPORT, by default, do not link anywhere, but still show up.  FULL WRITE-UPS ONLY will only display cards of logs that have been finished and are fully published (or are MOSTLY published); and HIDE NO REPORTS shows any logs that are fully written or are ‘in progress’.  I coded this in a manner to which NO reloading of the page has to take place to show.  The idea is to make it easier to find fully written chase logs, or just hide ones that have no content.

Super happy about that… another feature of this later down the road may be to remember your choice so it displays that way on all years, but right now, I think this gets the point across enough where I was comfortable to set it live!  Now it allows me the freedom to start populating a bunch of prior chases that may/may not have full write-ups and start filling out those annual log books!

Go check it out!

A lot going on locally, including some weather with chasing potential over the next few days… all this leading into the FIRST weekend in God-Knows-How-Long that will actually be NICE to be outside for…

Chasing-wise, nothing significant on the level I would LIKE to see on an August setup, hail/wind threats along with potential for flash flooding (mainly on Thursday for flooding).  Tomorrow will probably require a bit of a northerly haul, perhaps into northwest Nebraska.  Models have been throwing darts at the region for where the best severe weather setup lies, but my hunch will be closer to the Nebraska/South Dakota border.  A few do have some potential along I-80 into northeast Colorado, which would be more ideal for me, but we’ll see.  Currently on a ‘Yellow Light’ with work, so hopefully it’ll go green by tomorrow morning.  I will load up and prepare just to be ready for a quick turn tomorrow morning.  Thursday sees the overall severe threat lessen, but the focal area will reside across eastern Colorado.  With less upper dynamics, the severe threat lowers along with the storm speed, and with PLENTY of moisture combined with those slow moving storms, you better believe flash flooding will be an issue.  I will also look into deploying Thursday, mainly with a focus on that, but the where exactly remains to be seen.  Chances are I will stick to the Front Range; whether that’s close to home up north, Denver, or Colorado Springs, remains to be seen.  Friday, the solid moisture lessens, but would be enough to still be problematic, particularly in areas that may get hammered Wednesday or Thursday.

Storm chances lessen in both coverage and intensity over the weekend, but will still remain.  What will NOT remain is the heat; after mid/upper 90s for the first half of the week, it may be a struggle to get into the 80s, particularly the final couple days of the work week.  And not much rise beyond that heading into the weekend, but mid-80s will feel worlds better than the 100+ that has seemingly ruined just about every weekend in the last month.  The best news, perhaps, is those 80s SHOULD linger into next week, so this won’t be a 48 hour tease, but something that’ll hold for a handful of days.  We’ll heat back up again middle of next week, but that one may only be a couple-day teaser as another front looks to try and sneak in late next week which will knock us down again.  Not sure I am ready to wave the Pumpkin-Spice flag yet, but I will take the small victory of knowing the next heat blast will be a quickie!

Just doing some quick website maintenance, adding the four chases from last week that wrapped up an otherwise pretty lowkey July.  While I got some pretty images, none of the days really performed all that great.  Aside from the Longmont flooding on the 28th and an encounter with a brief little QLCS birdfart in northern Nebraska on the 30th, this was a series of otherwise unremarkable chasing.  Still, was nice to get a little July romp in, as July typically is my slowest month for chasing during the warm season.

Not much looking forward in the nearterm; I had some low hope that we’d see some post-frontal action close to home, but that is looking pretty non-existent.  Last night’s front did give a desperately needed reprieve from the string of 100-degree days, in fact as I write this at 12:30, the temperature is a cool 67-degrees.  Aside from the smoke from the fires in the northwest which have given a bit of a hue to the skies, it’s absolutely wonderful right now.  Unfortunately, it’ll be a one-day tease as we’ll jump back into the 80s tomorrow, and likely back into the 100s by the weekend.  This summer continues to drag on.  Next week, MAY have some opportunities, both in and out of the state, so we’ll see how that unfolds as we go through this week.  But right now, I don’t foresee ANYTHING to chase, including a lightning chance, through the weekend.

All cozied up here in my Ogallala hotel after following some storms up I-76 this afternoon.  Today’s forecast didn’t pan out like we thought with storms having better wheels and actually going severe for a time.  Initial thoughts on today were very slow moving Urban Corridor storms that would produce flash flood potential from Denver and points north.  While there was a brief window for some minor street flooding in southeast Denver, the storms had more juice to them, thus propagated northeast much quicker, leaving the areal residence time too low for major impacts fortunately.  That also meant the cluster moving northeast out of Denver packed some winds, and it did produce severe caliber gusts east of Denver up to south of Wiggins before the storm gusted out.  I got to Fort Morgan ahead of the complex and watched it die, making a quick day of today and getting up here to Ogallala early enough for a real dinner and some chill time.  The day prior, much more active, with significant street flooding in Longmont followed by a pretty hefty storm outside, you guessed it, Akron.

Ended up here in Ogallala due to inflated hotel costs in my usual North Platte.  I didn’t figure the 45 minutes were going to kill me tomorrow, and honestly after an awful night’s sleep, I was fine with getting in early and making a chill evening.  It’s approaching 10pm MDT now, and I am wrapping up my evening and hoping to settle into snooze shortly.

Tomorrow will be the most legit of the chase days this week… a wind-bag setup in central Nebraska.  My initial target is Valentine, where the initial storms should develop near.  I think there is a VERY brief, and I mean VERY brief window where a discrete storm COULD try to get interesting, but the overall threat and vibe on tomorrow is quick transition to linear, and a pretty hefty complex rolling southeast across central Nebraska.  I should land in Valentine about 3pm CDT, which should fall within an hour or so of initiation, with the idea to let the complex chase me down to I-80.  I have a weird excitement about tomorrow, not cause I think I will see tornadoes, but should be a good storm day.  And depending on its lightning potential and how far southeast it chases me, perhaps I make a later evening of it for some lightning (which July has treated me well on).

Friday remains up in the air… a poor lapse rate, triple point play somewhere in northern Missouri.  I am not 100% sold on that, but if I were to wake up in St. Joe, MO on Friday morning and the setup has some potential, I may pitch it and make a day of it, returning home over the weekend on a mini-extended trip to wrap up July.  Aside from a couple backyard lightning stints and the July 1 lightning/hailer, there has virtually been ZERO chasing this month, and suddenly in the final few days, I am going to rack up some mileage.

In fact, after today’s haul, I have officially cracked the Top 10 for most miles chases in a year sitting at 9th place here in Ogallala… I will move into 8th place halfway to North Platte as I am only 23 miles away from that spot, and if Friday comes into play, suddenly I launch into 6th place, with a top 5 ranking not out of the question by this trip’s end.  The miles don’t reflect the season I have had, but none-the-less, it shows the grind 2026 was, and depending on how the rest of the season shakes out, could be a Top 3 mileage season when all is said and done (33,394 in 2007 at 3rd).

My only-useful-to-me stats spelled out, I am going to go ahead and add what I hope is 8 hours of slumber to my career total.  Currently I have given myself 4 to 1 odds that SPC does include a small 2% tornado risk in one of the first two Day 1 outlooks as there is currently none, and a 2 to 1 odds on them upgrading the wind to a 15%SIG1 level.  I see enough in the evening models to think both upgrades are justified.  So we’ll see if I got the jump on SPC with those or not.  I would give 1 to 1 odds that I don’t wake up until after the 1300z outlook is put out, so that’s why I am betting on either of the first two outlooks.  I can go back to the 6z one if I absolutely must haha

I’m a nerd… sue me…