This was a fun outing!  What started as a tornadic supercell running parallel to I-76 turned out to be a hailuva storm!  After stopping several times to observe and shoot, we ended up on a poe-dunk highway about a mile north of Fort Morgan where we stayed for nearly 30 minutes shooting the hailstorm as it began to weaken.  Hail as big as golfballs fell coating the ground with a couple inches of accumulation.  The video I shot was shown on The Weather Channel the next morning making my National Video Debut!  The night didn’t end there!  Late night storms surprised us on the way back sending us and the car nose first into a ditch.  Fortunately a chaser coming down the same road was able to pull us out quickly.

We got on the storm while it was tornado-warned west of Ft. Morgan along I-76.  We didn’t see anything tornadic, but were consistently being clipped with the core and a few hailstones.

Hailstorm begins just to the south of Fort Morgan.  Hailstones as big as nickles begin to blanket the highways and fields in the area.  At this point, we follow I-76 into Fort Morgan where we get off and head north, stopping to shoot near the airport.

We proceeded a little further up the road, getting into the thick of the core.  Within 10 minutes, hail begins to accumulate on the highway creating an almost winter-like scene.  Hail gets to be as big as quarters at some points, but most of it falls in the size of marbles and nickles.

After several minutes of heavy hail, I decide to get out and make commentary, using my Kansas Road Map book as a shield for the barrage of ice.  I didn’t stay on the highway for long as I noticed a semi truck crusing down the highway at us.  I quickly ran around to the other side of the car before it sped by.  Poor James took the worst of it as it kicked all sorts of ice into the car.

After dumping nearly 2 inches of hail on the area, the storm passed on.  The aftermath left quite the mess just to the north of Fort Morgan.  I-76 saw very little in terms of this storm, but areas less than a mile away got clobbered.  We stuck around for a bit and shot some of the aftermath as neither of us had seen anything quite like this before.

The night was far from over.  Getting home was still in the plans, and Mother Nature hadn’t quieted down yet.  Reports from NWS of a possible large tornado on the ground near Shamrock lead us on a maze of dirt roads after dark.  Whoops!  Hail from that storm aling with heavy rains covered the roads in a mess of obstacles, including several inches of hail and water.  Scarey as it was, we both were laughing at ourselves as we let the cameras roll.  Sadly enough we lost battery power just before a second storm sideswiped us.  In an attempt to pull off and allow the storm to pass, we ended up getting blown nose first into a ditch.  Fortunately a fellow chaser on the same dirt road in the middle of nowhere at 10:30pm happened to be coming along.  With his SUV and a tow rope, he pulled us out of the rising water after we allowed the storm to pass.

The hail video I shot would be the first ever video I would sell nationally as the Weather Channel picked it up!  A very exciting chase all around!