April 6, 2001 NEVIT Photos
Foggy, temperature and dewpoint 53 F, 9 AM.  John Garner giving a weather briefing complete with hand analyzed maps to the NEVIT group, 10 AM.
It was now 1 PM and we were near Russell, KS.  The overcast remained unbroken and the first Doppler Radar indicated tornado warming was issued for a storm headed north at a high rate of speed and 60 miles west of us.  The Ness City, KS Library, 5 PM.  It may be a small library, but they do have a computer hooked up to the Internet.  Iowa State University chasers had been here earlier in the day.
John Garner, team leader, takes a look at the forecast products available on the Internet in the Ness City, KS library, while Evan Kucera looks on. The chase team is in position now at our target location near Dighton, KS. 
Christy Carlson stands ready as the squall line approaches.  Although large tornadoes were unexpected, we were at least anticipating gustnadoes or small short lived tornadoes. Jim Kaiser and John Garner keep a watchful eye on the squall line moving into our area at a forward speed of 75 mph.
Unsuccessful at catching a tornado on this chase, Evan Kucera was at least successful in catching some of the tumbleweed that was moving north with winds gusting to 70 mph. Our final stop of the evening was near Russell, KS for a late dinner and break before the long drive back home to UNL.  We arrived back in Lincoln, NE at 1:45 AM, a 789.5 mile chase.
The opinion of all of the chase team was it would have been crazy to have NOT chased on such a high risk day.   One of these students thought he might produce a research paper on what went wrong with the computer models that forecast such a high probability of tornadoes yet only 3 small tornadoes were produced any where in the Plains on April 6, 2001. 

The chase season has just begun and undaunted, the team vows to head out again when storms threaten the area!

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