June 6, 2015

I was teamed up with Sean Casey and crew for the 2015 chase season helping them shoot an IMAX movie. June 4 and 5 were huge Colorado chase days with multiple photogenic tornadoes. June 4 especially near Simla. I was sidelined those days, however. The TIV crew was out but the setups looked too marginal to bring the Doghouse support vehicle out as well, in which I was navigator/forecaster. I had just been out for a week with them, so I was needed back at home and couldn't make it out to chase by myself either. June 6 was the weekend, however, and I wanted a piece of the action. Capping looked like a problem but I was desperate having missed one of the biggest chase events of the year. SPC got my hopes too with an upgrade to 10 hatched on the 3pm outlook. I've seen huge tornadoes in that corner of Nebraska with those odds.

I picked a target in northeast Nebraska on the warm front and was off by early morning from Springfield. Stopping at the usual chaser pitstop east of Nebraska City with some pretty, stormy skies off to the north:

A robust storm went up just outside of O'Neill, NE. I was there to watch it tower. For once I felt like I picked the right target and was in perfect position right at initiation. Would the storm do anything though?

The storm started to cycle with a classic supercell updraft base and the beginnings of a wall cloud with RFD clear slot. I was pretty optimistic I was about to get a nice show.

The storm passed by to the north with a wall cloud and RFD clear slot. It wouldn't produce, though. The structure soon fizzled.

The storm fell apart, problems with shear and surface flow probably. I caught up with COD briefly to say hi. A storm to the southeast cycled briefly with some supercell structure, but it too failed to produce. When it died I called the chase and camped in the van off I-29 in Iowa.