I had been wanting to chase this day for some time. I saw it coming in the models, and after things went gangbusters in CO/KS/TX the day before with multiple reports of tornadoes from multiple tornadic supercells, I was very eager to get out there and hopefully catch a second day of luck. There were two target areas this day: one in the south, and the higher risk area, and one to the north, a much closer target but maybe not as favorable for tornadoes (capping, moisture, and instability didn't look to be as good in the northern target). The evening prior, Chris Karstens called me and offered to have me drive M2 for a pre-TWISTEX-season chase to work out some bugs. I was happy to oblige. It was fun to get to see everyone again.
Chris and I left Ames around 7:30 AM for a target somewhere in southeast Nebraska. We were just planning to meet up with the team somewhere there. We eventually met them just south of the Nebraska-Kansas border on U.S. 77 north of Marysville. We lunched in Beatrice, waited in a field north of Beatrice, then moved east to near Auburn over the course of the afternoon as we waited for initiation. By the time we were heading east on U.S. 136 to Auburn, there were a number of meaty looking agitated cumulus clouds trying to break the cap. None were successful, but they were pretty looking. As we sat near Auburn, some turkey towers and weak convection finally initiated to our north. This convection was racing north-northwest, however, and thus had no chance of going tornadic. It never really even became severe either.
Finally we decided to jog north along U.S. 75 since that's where the best CU field was/was going. Just after stopping on the south side of Nebraska City around 7PM, a storm finally popped to the southwest. Actually, multiple storms initiated around this time (some 00Z magic?). We dashed west along highway 2 to intercept the storm.
We intercepted the storm as we traveled on state highway 43. There were a few separate updrafts in a N-S line at this time along the highway, so we began doing some core punching. Very little hail to begin with (I think Tony was able to find ONE pea). We turned back once we got to the southern flank of the storm, which really wasn't looking very good, and headed back north. On our way through Bennet, we finally ran under a more intense core and began picking up nickel to quarter sized hail that lasted all the way until we stopped at a convenient store parking lot at the intersection of 43 and 2. We decided to pursue the storm towards the east as a few team members saw some ragged scud and lowerings to the northeast. Light was really fading by now, though, and this eventually killed the chase a few minutes later. A tornado warning had been issued for part of this storm to the north during this time, but there was no decent signature on base velocity, and it was too dark to see in there. Some chasers claim to have seen a tornado, but I'm in disbelief. Aided by intermittent lightning strikes, however, I did see some structure to the storm develop after we had called it quits. It looked like the storm had developed a disc-shaped updraft region, and I believe there probably was a wall cloud under it, but it was too far away to see and I was driving so I couldn't look for long enough to tell.
The team ended up breaking for good at the intersection of U.S. 34 and U.S. 75 outside of Union. Chris and I then headed home. I got in around 1:30 AM. All in all, I would have to call this chase a very low-end bust.
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