March 30, 2006

Chase Target : Lincoln, NE

Chase Partner: Maren Lehigh-Hansen
Nowcasting: Bill Doms, Jennifer Curtis

A late night drive lands us in Lincoln, NE early on Thursday morning. The SPC has a 15% and hatched tornado probability for SE Nebraska through OK. We position ourself on the south side of the projected path of the low. We expect to chase between Omaha and Lincoln and I-80 and I-70. SPC Outlook.

Thursday morning, we awaken to the sound of thunder. A thunderstorm warning is issued as early morning convection rolls though Lincoln. We decide to head south towards the Kansas border. The SPC issues PDS Tornado Watch box #109

My laptop takes a dump on our way to our target, as storms rapidly move from south to north on the west side of the low. Kansas has more descrite super cells. We pick a cell in northern Kansas, which becomes tornado warned in route.

We encounter this cell just north of Beatrice, NE. It piles hail up, and later goes tornado warned but does not produce several minutes later.

Relying on the sky, a street atlas, weather radio and occational calls from Jennifer and Bill, we see that the cell is starting to become more linear and begins an more northeasterly movement.

We race the line for as long as we can before it eclipses us west of Omaha. The storm has the typical shelf look with a deep green color.

The bow surges to our south as we get 60 mile an hour winds and very heavy rain. We begin our long journey riding along in the core of the storm with the wind at our back.

Much to our suprise the cell goes tornado warned and produces a few miles to our east. We race the storm, both us moving at around 60 miles per hour. Relying on spotter reports and the wall to wall radio coverage, we never manage to catch the area of rotation, but always seem to be two minutes behind it. We catch a glimpse of a wall cloud for no more than 30 seconds across the state line into IA.