All photos copyright © Matt Ziebell
| Monday, June 7: The previous day I headed north from Salina to O'Neill, NE and aside from seeing the upgraded TIV in town, the day was rather uneventful. This day was quite meager for any convection west of a KSUX to KGRI line given a strong capping inversion (H7 temps of 14C), a weak mid/upper flow once again and high dewpoint depressions. I refused to drive into MN or even WI where pretty much everything was better since the next couple of days in the Central Plains would feature just as good, if not better setups. I killed most of the early afternoon by taking some scenic photos around Long Pine, NE and then made a final data stop at the library in Ainsworth after noticing a couple decent TCu blowing up to my southwest. A strong stationary front was still hung up in northern NE and moisture convergence combined w/near triple digit temps to the south was apparently enough to help work the cap over and completely breach it by 1700 CDT. The convection was definitely high based, but on a day you're not expecting a chase, you can't refuse this! I shot south to Brewster and watched the cells evolve into a linear mass all the while the northeastern end of the updraft base underwent a strong evolution into a meso! Inflow to this guy wasn't bad either as a couple inflow stingers developed with time. By 1915 CDT, the storm surprised me with an impressive series of wet microbursts just to my WNW and later a pair of small funnel clouds to my immediate south. I didn't hesitate or question what I was seeing, so I phoned the LBF-NWS to inform them of the meso and funnels, but emphasized that the funnels were very shallow and likely not going to become tornadoes...but who knows?! About 12 minutes later they issued the TOR warning while I received a 40 minute barrage of heavy rain and nickel size hail. The road network wouldn't allow me to keep up with this, so I let it pass and headed to North Platte for a motel all the while watching a beautiful mammatus field to my east. |
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