6/4 - 11am CDT - NW Oklahoma

It's off to Northwest Oklahoma this morning as we look for super-heated air. Even though the SPC has a MODERATE risk in Kansas and Nebraska, it is pretty certain that temperatures in OK should create a great deal of convection and a thermal low, thus making storms. Any storm that forms down here will cut off resources to the storms in Kansas, so this looks like a pretty good target area.

In the mean time, we're going to visit the town where Twister was filmed, Wakita, OK. We already saw the lake where the dual tornadoes and flying cows happened in the movie yesterday. It was odd as we drove over Kaw Lake since that scene was so memorable. One of our drivers shouted over the radio, "We've got cows!"

6/3 - 9:30pm CDT - Not Much Action

We waited in Central Kansas for a little while until a boundary between warm, dry air from the west and a southeastward propelled boundary with moist air behind it became evident on radar. Thinking that the collision of these two boundaries would spark a line of storms or perhaps a super cell, we traveled to the east of the area of convergence of these boundaries. It fired off a storm alright... one that lasted for a total of 20 minutes and died a pitiful death. Nothing else manifested from this convergence.

A fast moving line of wind-driven storms moved toward us from Western Oklahoma as we moved east towards our hotel in Blackwell, OK. The sky turned black and frequent lightning ensued as we pulled into the parking lot and wind gusts really got going. Just as the last tour guests got in the building, the bulk of the storm came through. The rain was nearly horizontal!

I'm not too optimistic about tomorrow due to a lot of rain cooled air around the Plains, but it is still too early to tell. In any case, I think our target area will be somewhere in either Central or Eastern Nebraska. Maybe tomorrow will be the day...

6/3 - 11am CDT - In the Middle

We're not terribly sure where our target area is today. The computer models are showing a large low pressure system in Central Kansas that will tighten up and sink into Southwest Kansas by later this afternoon. That would mean our target area is somewhere in Southwest Kansas. There's also a school of thought that the SPC favors that would put our target area in Southeast Kansas. So we're making a compromise... we're going to South Kansas and waiting. Hopefully we'll figure out where to go later this afternoon.

It would be great if we could go 3 for 3 in the days that we've seen super cells. We've yet to see a tornado, but the cells we've seen are even better than seeing a tornado in some cases. You can't go into a trip like this with the mindset that you'll see a tornado. Just seeing some of the storm structure is worth the whole trip!

6/2 - 5:30pm MDT - Impressive Super Cell

Here are some pictures of the super cell that John Belski mentioned on his blog this afternoon:

We chased it from Eastern Colorado into Western Kansas where it died out due to interference from surrounding clouds and cooler air seeping into the surface levels, which killed any instability the atmosphere had. We got hit with pea sized hail during the beginning, but according to spotters, this cell had up to grapefruit sized hail in its later stages. Thank goodness we didn't get hit with that!

Since today's severe potential is pretty much wiped out, we're on our way to WaKeeney, KS. We'll settle in to our hotel there and watch tonight's lightning show that is expected as a cold front sags south into the area.

6/2 - 12:30pm MDT - Pictures From Yesterday, Eastern Colorado

As promised, here are the pictures from the super cell yesterday:

The DOW (Doppler on Wheels) with Discovery Channel crew not far behind.

The "mothership" cloud, which nearly dropped a tornado. Quite a bit of rotation going on in there! I shot a panorama of this and I'll post that when I get home.

So we're on our way to Eastern Colorado to make the best of what looks like a not-so-great severe weather day. There are too many clouds from morning storms over Kansas and Nebraska to really support a good outbreak, but we'll see what we can find.

6/1 - 10pm MDT - What a Day!!!

Do I have some pictures for you! We followed a super cell from Scottsbluff, NE to Grant, NE that constantly maintained scary looking wall clouds and even a couple funnels. We were darn sure that it was going to drop a tornado, but it simply didn't execute. Since this cell was the only show in town due to its isolation, the TIV (Tornado Intercept Vehicle), the DOW (Doppler on Wheels), and the whole team from the hit Discovery Channel show Storm Chasers showed up. We passed them a couple times as a wall cloud really got going. Since this all happened at sunset, the photos are simply stunning. I'll try to upload as many as I can tomorrow morning. Some of these are National Geographic magazine quality shots... Time to get some sleep!

6/1 - 11am MDT - NE Colorado

We left Denver this morning after a pleasant breakfast at a Village Inn Restaurant. We're off to Northeast Colorado in search of some super cells that could form this afternoon. While the tornado threat is pretty marginal, we are hoping to at least see some good cloud structure and maybe lightning later on this evening. The SPC has a 5% risk of tornadoes for this neck of the woods, so maybe we'll get lucky with something isolated this afternoon.

In the meantime we'll find a Wal-Mart and stock up on supplies like we did on last week's tour.