After waiting patiently outside of York for initiation to our west, we repositioned north near Albion and along the way encountered this burgeoning cell to our west. Video grab
|
Starting in Hays, we were split on where to chase
today. Bulk shear would be best across NE ahead of a dryline, but
recent heavy rains there would have the potential to stunt afternoon temps
and limit CAPE. Farther south it was shear that would be weaker
while CAPEs would dominate; although elevated shra and cloud cover from ICT and points
south much of the morning reduced our confidence in that target.
As we neared Salina around noon, the cloud cover visible farther south
was enough for us to write that target off. So we shot north into
NE where skies had cleared.
After waiting patiently outside of York for initiation to our west, we repositioned north near Albion and along the way encountered this burgeoning cell to our west. Video grab |
| Fighting the hills
for a better view of the RFB, we later observed this impressive wall
cloud with a few low-hanging scud tags. We were still probably 10 miles at least from this
storm, but at the time it seemed farther since almost all of these storms
were not particularly deep.
Oh yeah, it was shortly after we entered Nebraska that we heard of the tornadic storm in northern OK. I recall seeing the visible satellite loop in that area clearly showing the storm developing along an outflow boundary collision with the dryline DESPITE so much cloud cover nearby! We were shocked, but had to make the most of our meager storm. Video grab |
 |
 |
Just south of Albion
now with a wider view of the storm and its persistent wall cloud.
From my video, there was at best slow rotation in this wall cloud
during this time. This particular storm was rather narrow and with another cell already to its
southwest, I was worried this "lead cell" would be seeded out.
My concern of cool surface temps from all the recent rains seemed legit considering none of the storms we saw today exhibited crisp convection; however we still had a weak rotating storm and that was fine by us. |
| A wet RFD was now
working its way around the meso and wall cloud, but we chose to stay in
place given a good view of additional storms developing just to the south
of this.
As the storm passed north of Albion, the occlusion downdraft looked very nice but nothing that had us convinced it would be worth pursuing north. As it turns out this storm did produce a funnel near Tilden as the occlusion downdraft matured (see Phil Kurimski's account), but overall the storm was in decline both visually and per radar trends. |
 |
 |
Dropping south, we stopped about four miles northeast of Belgrade to observe this next promising storm showcase a lowered base with visible inflow. |
| Looking very nice here with an RFD encroaching on a weakly-rotating wall cloud. Only about 10 minutes later this storm's inflow became contaminated with -ra from another storm to its south. Needless to say this semi-promising storm became very cool/stable in appearance. |  |
 |
Rain-laden RFD now as the storm drifts to our northwest. This shelf cloud developed along the gust front and there may have been something of interest farther NNW on its cyclonically-sheared end, but we weren't digging the storm's trend by this point and soon abandoned it. |
| Three times the charm?
Tail-end Charlie here (viewed from about five miles SE of Belgrade) looking
very promising given its rounded base, inflow, vault and wall cloud.
Similar to the previous storms however, this updraft would soon be overwhelmed
by a wet, expansive RFD. Given no other storms worth our attention
after this one, we called it a day and drove to York for some Chinese food
and a motel.
In summary, these storms along the dryline were nothing more than a tarnished string of pearls that continually teased us with interesting structure. Over the years, I tend to chase the shear target more than the CAPE max target so long as rotating updrafts can develop. If sufficiently strong rotating updrafts ensue, the subsequent pressure deficits and enhanced vertical velocities more than offset the limited CAPE resulting in some very interesting events. It wasn't that case today in NE, so congrats to those who went south! |
 |