Ultimately, this initial storm complex sent out a wad of outflow that ended up becoming the end of the potential tornadic phase of this chase. It was a nice sight, complete with classic blocky lowering beneath the distant rotating storm. Once again, I took advantage of the telezoom lens to get some compositions of the distant, but very beautiful supercell Cb with mountainous terrain on the horizon. The southernmost of the conjoined, elongated convective entity became increasingly photogenic as I approached Federal, WY. I had to break out the 80-400mm lens since the storm was rather far away still. There was indeed an ominous scuddy lowering. Finally, once I neared Horse Creek (NW of Cheyenne), I could see underneath the base. This road was perfect to get a closer view of the storm, but the problem was the 7000-7500 foot terrain between me and the updraft base and any lowerings… so about 80% of the drive was just seeing a dark mass to my west without seeing what was beneath the base. It was a very risky move because should other more siggy storms develop east of me, I would be screwed because the one-way trip around SR211/Horse Creek Rd. I said to hell with waiting on it, I’ll just drive to it. A supercell formed north of Laramie and just sat there developing on the southwest flank. I chased WEST of I-25… yes, you heard me right. From a unique chase/photography experience, it was a success. But we were chasing in my Jeep, so when it all came down to quick-acting decision making, I guess I had the say in where we were going Despite these disappointments, rest assured, the chase trip was another success!įrom a tornado perspective, my target area failed. Jay Antle and Evan Bookbinder certainly provided a lot of wisdom, entertainment, and all around good times during the trip, and I thank them for that! I just wish they wouldn’t have listened to me at 6:24pm on June 17th. So the three-day stretch from June 16-18 was indeed one I wish to forget - but I was in good company. Another rather painful busts was June 16th, where we chased weak storms near Sidney, Nebraska while a stationary, classic supercell was parked just southeast of Wichita while we were eating dinner in Sidney. Other busts on this trip included the only true “blue sky bust” of the trip which was in Iowa (of course) on June 18th. Of course, there were the low points - including the most low-point chase day in my 12 years of chasing storms - the “Bust for the Ages” on June 17th. Daytime lightning photography was also a success on two occassions in northeastern Colorado - June 14th north of Limon and June 21st near Iliff in the northeast corner of Colorado. This was probably the most amazing mammatus I have ever seen. Another memorable moment of the trip was the mammatus over Pratt, KS on June 15th. Not to mention, this storm yielded me my only tornado images of this vacation - a nice, tall, dusty tornado south of Pritchett, Colorado. This storm landed me some of my best images of the year, including a “shot of the year” candidate - a rare image of mirror inflow dust jets feeding into a massive supercell thunderstorm. The highlight storm of the trip was the Baca County, CO – Morton County, KS Supercell of June 13th. It was another successful chase trip, but not without some significant disappointments.
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