Lightning east of Miller, Nebraska on 06/05/06
With a moderate risk posted by the 13z SPC outlook, we were cautiously optimistic about the day’s chances although admittedly guarded about tornado chances. We knew all the ingredients weren’t quite there for tornadogenesis, but we still had hopes of viewing some nice structure and getting some good lightning shots. We started the day with a general target of Hastings, NE. A 500mb speed max from the NW was progged to drop down off the ridge as the low level jet kicked in from the south and surface moisture returned behind the morning MCS. The back side of that morning MCS was quickly eroding and hopes were that daytime heating, along with some boundaries dropped by the MCS would be enough for a trigger.
We headed out around 11am and made the 200 mile trip to Lincoln where stopped for a quick lunch and data. By this time the SPC had slightly revised their moderate risk and the morning MCS that had been in place over SE NE was quickly sliding farther SE, allowing for some clearing to the west of Lincoln. A pre-frontal trough - hanging out about 100 miles ahead of the SW- to NE-oriented cold front that was just now entering NW Nebraska - was now sagging south and around the Broken Bow area. This trough was now the main focus by the RUC and the SPC as the source of ignition for the day’s storms. BBW was a bit out of our driving range by this time but we decided to make it as far NW as we could.
By late in the afternoon we were NW of Grand Island, heading NW on highway 2. Two cells had blossomed - one to our west, another to our north. We were now getting tucked beneath the anvil of the storm to our west.
After leaving the interstate, we no longer had a data connection so were going only by sight. The atmosphere was a bit soupy and while the updraft towers had some nice, crisp edges to them, the updraft bases were annoyingly undefined. A nice display of virga was ongoing to our SW as we continued NW.
We continued NW to Ansley which we felt was a good place to pause, giving us a nice N-S road option should the cell to our NW continue to make progress to the SE. By this time, the cell in Custer County was SVR-warned and the weather radio - our only source of data - was indicating storm motion to the East at 15 mph. These storms were indeed crawling, although slightly more to the SE than East. We stayed ahead of the Custer County cell the entire time, dropping south on US 183 just ahead of it. We never got behind this cell, realizing only after the fact that the SE movement probably meant that being more to the S or even SW (rather than E or SE) would probably have afforded us a better view. We dropped down to Miller where we stopped to get some lightning shots as the cell was now putting out CGs at the rate of one every couple of seconds. Click images for larger view (this should work for all images in this post). Most images were no more than 2 second exposures with the Canon 30D kit lens (18-55mm) stopped down to F/22. Adjustments made in photoshop were limited to cropping, resizing, levels adjustments, and USM. As always, just click on the image for a larger view.
As this cell approached us we began getting light rain at our location so we packed up the gear and meandered our way down to the interstate. While shooting the lightning, the others were able to grab new data. The data didn’t look promising: there were no discreet, good-looking cells on radar, rather a smattering of marginally severe cells spread throughout several counties in central and western Nebraska. It was now close to 7pm so we decided to start making our way back East along I-80. As we did so, the setting sun began to illuminate the cells that were weakening to our west. We pulled off around exit 353 (York, NE) to sit atop the overpass and get a few shots of the orange glow. The only adjustments made to these images was resizing in photoshop.
Storms: 2 SVR-warned cells
Total miles: 750