Cold core chase across central NE, targeting Norfolk for midafternoon supercells. Retargeted for early development north of Grand Island noting outflow dominant cell. Retargeted arc of cells to the east noting distant cone tornado near Lindsay, NE. Fell behind tornadic to the east so ended chase.
Crew and Equipment
Solo chase. Equipment: Sony AX100, Canon 60D with EFS 10-22, Samsung S9.
I car camped in northwest Missouri. My target was Norfolk, NE to play the cold core end of the setup. On the previous Plains run, the cold core was the magic side of the setup and I foresaw it being a big player on this event too, while the warm sector storms looked to interfere and line out early.
I made it to Norfolk early and took a nap in the car having not slept the best. A storm had fired right on the low north of Grand Island and became tornadic. It was about 90 miles to my southwest and a couple hours earlier than I expected. It was the cold core play though. I had setup way too far downstream for a later show and the cold core goes early. I blasted down to that storm, but came in hopelessly late. It was north of the warm front when I arrived, sucking cold air and buried in fog. I had zero visual on structure well inside of the tornado warning polygon and decided to back off for safety's sake. I approached again when I was confident the couplet was north of my west road, but the storm was just a sloppy HP mess with a trailing whale's mouth.
I ran east after new development. An arc of small cells was developing and they were producing as they crossed the warm front. My timing wasn't right and I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off for a bit until I finally double backed toward one of the western cells. Coming into the town of Lindsay, I could see a tornado way off in the distance.
I went after it, but it was long gone by the time I got under the base. Just the occluded, disorganized remanants of the tornado cyclone remained. These cells were one and done after they crossed the warm front so I started pushing east hoping to catch the next cells in the arc as they crossed.
Nothing else produced within view, however. I bumped into Tanner Charles and crew on the side of the road and said hi before leaving to reassess. Meanwhile the warm sector supercells had gone absolutely nuts. My radar updated with tornado reports: an unbroken line of red tornado icons from Lincoln all the way to the Missouri River. Those cells would continue to produce well into Iowa, but I was behind a now solid wall of convection and hopelessly out of position for that play. Just looking at the reports map, I could tell I was missing the chase of the year without question. I was crushed. In fact, I was so upset I realized I wasn't even fit to be driving anymore. I terminated the chase, and pulled off the road by a radio tower. A couple hours before sunset, I wound up car camping there for the night.
Conclusion
It's weird to get a tornado on a chase and still consider it one of your worst busts, but that's pretty much what this was. April 26 was indeed the chase of the year and a career chase for some. For me it was a devastating miss in a mounting list that's left me questioning my motives and whether I should continue to chase. Tragically these tornadoes caused multiple fatalities and were quite damaging.
