Reports & Pictures Chase Day 18

[Paul Sherman]

Magical Magical Colorado when you can get almost Supercells in 12c Temperatures, Golfball sized Hail and Funnel clouds, along with deadly Cg's and 70mph straight line winds. Started the day in Amarillo with a chase target of Lamar or just a tad north of there just NE Of the Surface Low. Around 4pm the first storm went up near Brush (CO) And others were starting to get organised south of there, so we busted North towards Kit Carson and then went North towards Limon, along the way the obligatory dirt roads came into play and then another flat tyre for Ian's car, by this time we were flanking 2 cells that were clearly getting their acts together but another cell 20 miles to our North went Tornado warned, we sent Tom and Ian away with 5 guests who had not seen a tornado before and me, Arron, Clare and Richard stayed behind. Then the fun began with sporadic golfball hail starting to rain down on us, after 15 minutes of changing the tyre we busted north to I-70 & Then back east to punch the core once again, the 2nd Golfball core punch in under half an hour, after that we were always the right side of the storm and flanked it all the way to Burlington, we saw a brief rope funnel cloud and shot some lightning, upon arrival at Burlington the storm unleashed another barrage of hail which covered the ground and 70mph straight line winds, Tom and Ian had by that time limped back to us with yet another flatty.

Amazing day in wonderful Colorado

- Hailbow just after getting cored

- Powering the Storm

- Hailstreaks

- View from SW - NE

- Rope Funnel after we punched through the Core

Paul S

[Arron]

Quick few from me as I'm goosed

[Gorky]

A few photo's from my chase. Guess we pretty much saw the same storms. I'd originally been camped at Fort Morgan and would have been on the Northern Tor Warned cell if I hadn't gotten impatient. As it is I went too far south so only saw the tornadoes from a distant.

Tornado 1 started a large Dust swirl about 15 miles NW of me. At this point, my camera was still in my bag and I tried to video it whilst driving but at that range I doubt you can see anything. It was starting to wrap in rain when I got my camera out and changed lenses (all whilst still driving :o) so the shot is about the best I got.

The next tornado was a very brief dust swirl followed shortly by a needle funnel. The pic is pretty crapppy so I didn't upload it. I possibly saw another but I'm gonna call it a rain shaft for now. It just appeared to be connected to a slight lowering and it may possibly have been rain wrapping around a weak rope tornado.

The rest of the day was about the lightning.

As I was driving towards Kirk, Co, a massive bolt came down right behind town from my vantage point. Almost immediately a massive plume of smoke was visible. As I drove into town the volunteer fire officer was leaving his fire station (just a hut) in a 40 odd year old ancient firetruck to race to the scene. I followed to the end of the road and at the far end, pretty much the entire field was ablaze. I can only assume a petrol tank was hit and exploded big time. As I sat some distance away at the end of the road, about a dozen fire engines from across the county turned up to help fight the blaze. As I left to give them some room, an armada of chasers descended on town, including a DOW, the Weather Channel news car and a few others.

I spent the rest of the evening taking various lightning shots with not much to show. I was either too far away, too close and in too much rain, or plain pointing the wrong way at the wrong time. Still got a handful of shots of which the best are attached.

[UkStormChaser]

Some pictures from me, taken for Paul as usual tee hee. HDR for the win.

Edited May 18, 2011 by UkStormChaser

[Dorsetbred]

Colorado delivers yet again

[Nick F]

Great pictures again and a great chase for what was not even a SPC SLIGHT risk, despite the golf ball size hail and damaging wind gusts. You wait years for these kind of storms in the UK and they didn't even get a dedicated thread on Stormtrack Forum, so I guess there weren't many hardcore US chasers out following them, maybe a few locals with the day off and those on tours.

Hopefully the start of some productive back-to-back chase days ahead.

[SteveB]

Congrats on some action at last. Hopefully the start of an active few day's.

[dogs32]

Colorado delivers yet again

it delivered mate....awesome storm....mind blowing horizintal RFD.....wild lightning to..........

got videos..put all up when get back....

now a interesting few dys ahead

Edited May 18, 2011 by dogs32

[duckeyh]

it delivered mate....awesome storm....mind blowing horizintal RFD.....wild lightning to..........

got videos..put all up when get back....

now a interesting few dys ahead

Jealous.com......awesome pics so far , can't wait to see more

[nsrobins]

Loving the pictures - great stuff.

Batteries need to be charged though for a three day event starting this evening.

[icbinb]

Sounds like one of those days you will always talk about. Lovely photos from just a see text!

[ZONE 51]

Brilliant photos

[chionomaniac]

Here is a small clip of a Colorado supercell that seven of us in one car chased whilst the others (Arron mainly) helped changed the flat tyre in one of the other cars whilst taking on golf ball sized hail.

We never did catch up with the original tornadic supercell that we went after, but this one, with its dying mesocyclone in the centre, more than made up for it. Terrific lightning in this storm as well.

[Cookie]

nice video thanks for sharing

[Coast]

"Move over please, support vehicle for the 2011 NW stormchasers coming through"

[Cookie]

"Move over please, support vehicle for the 2011 NW stormchasers coming through"

[Arron]

lol Coast!