CHASE ACCOUNT below!

   
Neat looking updraft base structure on developing convection to my north from a location 12 W of Wray at 7:50pm (left).
5 minutes later, updraft base looking even better organized to the north from a viewing location just west of Wray (right).

   
At 8:20pm, the severe storm to my west was developing supercell characteristics with a strong RFD notch cutting through the backside of the updraft.  Real-time, somewhat strong, rotation was observed at cloud base.  Viewing location is a couple miles west of Haigler, NE, not too far from where I viewed the wonderful "Wray Mothership" in June 1999.

      
Shortly after 8:30pm, the rear-flank downdraft associated with this supercell begins to wrap precip around the south side of the updraft and I would no longer be able to see the entire updraft base (left and center).  Travelling east on Hwy 34 near Benkleman, the supercell was very electrically active around 9:00pm.

. . .Goodland Nighttime Supercell. . .
      
      

I was located just northwest of Goodland, KS on Hwy 27 after 11:00pm CDT watching a tornadic supercell.  This storm produced a couple short-lived tornadoes during its time in far southeast Yuma County, CO.  I did observe a brief funnel (possible tornado) after this sequence of images, however was not able to get a good lightning illuminated funnel on video.

CHASE ACCOUNT:
I left Lawrence KS around 9:45am targeting a general location in eastern CO along I-70, hoping by the time I got there that there would already be good stuff to go after.  It turned out to be a late show, therefore more maneuvering.  Jay Antle was nowcasting for me back in lawrence since he couldn't chase, and we both agreed that the place to play was the northern extent of the rich 60s dewps.  This extended up to near the Yuma/Akron region where a boundary was setting up.  Storms were ongoing in the Sterling areas and points north.  There was no reason to go north of the boundary after those storms where dewps were less than 50.

At Burlington, headed north on 385 as a sharp updraft blew up to the northwest, located southeast of Akron.  This was in the general target area so stuck with this.  It ended up orphaning out, and I continued north to Wray.  At Wray, went west as now other convection began to fire to WSW and also to the northwest tailing down from the southern NEB-PH stuff.  I decided to hang loose at a rest area outside of Eckley.  Updrafts showed best signs up to this point now to the WSW and immediate NW.  Dark bases and sculpted appearence at the LCL indicated these updrafts were ingesting good CAPE.  The chase began as my target storm was the one to my NW.  I kept pace with it for a good 30-40 minutes before it went SVR, with overall decent structure as I tracked back towards Wray.

Continued east at Wray and by this time, another ominous base now developed and showed signs of weak rotation to my north, meanwhile, the main severe storm was behind me to the west.  I got east of the NEB line, west of Haigler when I stopped to finally watch the main storm west.  The storm was now a developing supercell with a very impressive base, a good beaver tail developing to the northeast, and then finally a very well-defined clear slot punching through the southwest side directly west of me.  This allowed a wonderful view of portions of the underbelly of this developing supe with the near continous IC lightning in it.  As the RFD knifed its way through, the back "occluded" part had good real-time rotation, but never enough to be considered tornadic (hence, the supercell was never issued a TOR).  Soon, this mesocyclone wrapped precip around the south-side of the updraft, and I forever lost the best view of this storm.  Continued east on 34 to northeast of Benkleman as the storm, now north of me, still showed decent meso structure but clearly all wrapped up.  Darkness was prevailing and as I got to Trenton I went south on 25 in hopes of getting behing this activity for a good lightning display.

It turned out this first bout of severe storms weakened, and thus pretty much called it a chase day when I got to Atwood.  I would get to Colby and go *east* back towards home.  Time was after 10:30? or so CDT.  Listening to the radio... another SVR for Yuma Co.  I then notice, wow, there's still more, as nearly continuous lightning was now visible to the WNW.  I get to Colby.. decided, hmm, I'm this far from home, I'm lodging anyway, so what the hell.  I go *west* on 70 to investigate this new storm.  A TOR was now issued for Yuma Co, the first of the day, and it's at late night.

I fill up gas in GLD as this monster supercell is now visually evident  in the lightning display to the northwest.  It seemed to me that this storm was making a beeline straight for GLD.  I get northwest of GLD on 27 and park it.  This tornadic supercell revealed some of the best structure I've been on all this year, but it could only be revealed by the IC, CC, and CG lightning.  The beaver tail, on both sides of the supercell, was amazing.  About 10-15 minutes went by, and I trudged north slowly to get closer, and noticed very rapidly a nice condensed funnel approach over halfway to the ground to the NNW.  Of course, only seen by backlit lightning, I was not ready to call this a brief tornado, but it sure could have been.  I let NWS-GLD know about it, even though they were watching it themselves only 4-5 miles east of me.  A big, blocky wall cloud soon took over, and that was it for the tornadic activity that I could see.  I finally went home (Wakeeney Super 8) with nice SVR to drive through along the way.  Mini vacation is over, must go back to work.

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