The day started out with high hopes of tornadic thunderstorms in eastern Nebraska into southwest Iowa. We decided to make an initial target of Council Bluffs but ended up stopping in Stewart, IA off of interstate 80 to discuss a new plan of action due to increasing threat of storms more in southwest Iowa rather than Nebraska. We ended up near Atlantic, IA watching clear skies and praying that a tornado watch would be issued. The mesoscale discussion issued earlier stated a watch would be likely but after looking over the 18z Omaha sounding SPC determined a watch would not be necessary due to the very large capped environment. After 7pm the cap had yet to break so we decided to call it a day and go enjoy our defeated dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Atlantic.

It was very interesting that the cap did not break considering how juicy the surface really was. A couple of measurements taken with my weather instrument determined a temperature of around 83 and dewpoint of around 69 which was well above predicted. These numbers seemed to match with airport observations and very much seemed correct by how it felt outside. I do have to hand it to SPC for not issuing the watch but they certainly dropped the ball with the issuance of the md exciting all the chasers which led to some marginal chaser convergence in SW Iowa. Very disappointing drive home with only hope that tomorrow would bring an active day.

Pictures