Our team of 6, with two chase vehicles, left Lincoln, NE and drove to Kearney, NE
where we stopped at the University of Nebraska-Kearney library to
go over the forecast products available on the Internet.
photo by Ken Dewey
By early afternoon there was still a "whole lot of nothing going on". We
anticipated initiation of supercells within the hour so we left and positioned
ourselves 90 miles south of Ainsworth, NE.
photo by Ken Dewey
Finally, at about
3 PM, cumulus clouds began breaking through
the lid. SPC
issued a tornado watch for north central Nebraska.
We headed north toward
Ainsworth, NE.
photo by Ken Dewey
As we approached the
first supercell just outside Bassett, NE it began
to fall apart as
it moved at 35 mph toward the South Dakota border
photo by Ken Dewey
We positioned ourselves
northeast of Bassett, NE as a second
supercell which blew
up over Ainsworth headed in our direction.
SPC issued a severe
thunderstorm warning for the area.
photo by Ken Dewey
At 8:26 PM NWS North
Platte issued a tornado warning for
Rock and Keya Paha
counties. A tornado was observed on
the ground 12 miles
east of Ainsworth,NE and 6 miles northeast
of Long Pine, NE.
The developing tornado can be seen below
to the left of the
rain shaft.
photo by Walker Ashley
One of our teams moved
around to the northeast portion of the storm
where these photographs
were taken just before sunset. The other team
moved around to the
southwest side of the storm and took video of
the tornado.
photo by Walker Ashley
By now the sun had
set. Listening to the scanner we learned
that the tornado
had knocked out some power lines and
destroyed a storage
bin.
photo by Walker Ashley
There were probably
a dozen storm chasers congregated
along Nebraska Highway
137 as the tornado lifted back into
the mesocyclone.
Doppler on Wheels, Jim Leonard, as well as
the Weather Channel
were parked along side this road. Several chasers
remained for awhile
to photograph the lightning and the day's chase was now over.
photo by Walker Ashley
Many of the chasers
then moved on to Spencer to re-fuel.
Here, Gene Rhoden,
visits with some of Paul Sirvatka's students.
Note Gene's satellite
dish mounted on the back of his SUV.
He uses it to view
the Weather Channel during his chases.
photo by Ken Dewey
Jim Leonard, on the
right, one of the most successful chasers also
showed up and described
some of his recent chase experiences.
photo by Ken Dewey