Date: June 1, 2018
Time: 5:00 - 9:30 PM CDT
Place: Brewster, Ainsworth, Chambers, Nebraska
Distance: 1024 mi (792 positioning, 174 chasing, 58 to hotel)
Camera: T3i, GoPros5 & 7, Karma, Sony RX100ii
Warnings: SVR, TOR
Rating: S3

Pre-Chase

May 31, 7:55 PM - June 1, 1:21 AM MDT: Let's kick this off with a story of mild annoyance that only Toni and I will relate to. There we were, a late post-work drive to Colorado Springs. Crosstrek overflowing with the usual camera gear, suitcases, etc. Arriving well after 1 AM at the Double Tree, and wouldn't you know -- not a single luggage cart in sight. Now, Toni and I have a highly optimized luggage-cart-packing-algorithm -- each Pelican case and suitcase in its exact spot. But no cart means no packing -- we had to lug all this crap to our room manually (the horror). Normally not a big deal, but this Double Tree is a weird conference hotel laid out as a big Pentagon about a quarter mile around. It seriously took 10 traumatic, agonizing minutes lugging gear to get to our room!! Can you believe we were even able to chase the next day?!?!?!

9:15 AM MDT - 4:45 PM CDT: OK with that out the way, today's chase is a fairly typical late-season setup with a nice northern high plains trough impinging on some absolutely explosive instability in the SD-KS corridor (nearing 6000 J/kg in spots). The tradeoff is that shear is on the lighter side especially in our central Nebraska target. That said, a broken line of storms in extreme instability, with maybe a pinch of storm interaction -- you can never say never in these conditions.

We left Colorado Springs about 9:15 with an uneventful drive through Limon, then Brush, and eventually up to North Platte. During that time, the SPC bumped the 1630z outlook to a medium risk in central Nebraska, primarily for hail and winds. Still, excitement was growing. By 4:30, we'd arrived at my target of Dunning, NE, sitting by the Dismal River under growingly agitated CU. Definitely some deja vu as this was the exact spot my solo chase started last year.

The Chase

4:45 - 6:05 PM CDT: Over the next hour we drifted NE towards Brewster as agitated CU evolved into discrete towers to our SW. All signs were looking good as I timelapsed and got drone shots of the early proto-storms. As usual, they were not the most photogenic early in the chase when contrast is low and bases are flat.

6:05 - 7:30 PM CDT: My first signs of worry emerged by 6PM. Storms to our north were consolidating while new bases to our south struggled in the stronger cap. On one hand, we were at the right spot where a tail-end-charlie could perform some magic. But on the other, we had no roads to maintain this position -- needing to go way north or way south to get east. A classic sandhills dilemma.

Not trusting the new bases to our south, we headed north to Ainsworth and then plunged east on Hwy 20 into the back of the congealing MCS. Our strategy was to get in front of the line further north where we'd have more flexibility to let any new discrete cell move towards us rather than falling behind by going south.

This gambit actually worked out pretty well. After enduring a deafening hail core, we were soon surfing the leading outflow and eventually emerged from the precip around Emmet. Gustnadoes spun up on the leading edge of the line's outflow, but we barely had any time to stop and film with the squall baring down behind us. But the real target was a new, discrete mini-supercell just ahead of the line headed towards Chambers. Cutting south at O'Niell, we prepared to intercept.

7:30 - 9:35 PM CDT: The Chambers minisup was in sight before I even realized I was looking at it -- the compact updraft deceptively posed against the larger MCS further west. We had about 5 minutes to observe a tight, rounded wall cloud before the MCS absolutely obliterated the small cell with cold undercutting outflow. Kinda sad, but very cool to watch.

And just like that, the chase was basically over as upscale growth took over and darkness set in -- time to head to Grand Island. Near Wheeler, we paused briefly to watch a small lightning-set grass fire. Shortly after, a QLCS tornado warning over Ord made us stop at the 281/91 intersection to see if we could sneak a peak -- drone flight and all. While there was a confirmed touchdown, we never caught it in the lightning flashes.

9:35 - 10:50 PM CDT: The MCS chased us the rest of the way to Grand Island -- continuous lightning flashes in the rearview mirrors. Our hotel of choice was the Candlewood Suites completed with a Buffalo Wild Wings right across the parking lot. We hunkered down with beer and wings while the storm overtook us ending the day. A fun chase but colored with fantasies of what could have been.

Recap, Filmmaking Notes, and Lessons Learned