June 16, 2024

A low end day probability wise, but supercells looked likely off the triple point in far southwestern Nebraska.

Where I spent the night after the previous day's chase.

I met up with our team: Anton and Tracie Seimon, Hank Schyma. Carsten Peter was in from Germany as well, riding with the Seimons. We drove around on some dusty back roads for awhile until hopping on the storm of the day south of McCook.

There was a little side road off the main south highway out of town that offered a great view of the developing storm, and it was soon lined with storm chasers. We watched for awhile with spitting rain and small until the forward flank finally moved off of us, so I set the DSLR up on a tripod for a time lapse. Meanwhile, the storm was splitting. The right split transitioned from a classic supercell into a Low Precipitation type as it withered away, but it put on an amazing sunset show in the process.

The road basically turned into a storm chaser tailgate party, with everyone hanging out, folks stopping by to chat, and others playing music from their cars.

Carsten found a translucent hail stone that showed the internal layered structure.

The storm started cranking out cloud-to-ground bolts. I happened to catch a few of them during my timelapse sequence.

A shot looking in the opposite direction as the moon peeked through some anvil blow-off.

We stayed until dusk, some of the last chasers to leave. I wanted to lapse the very end of the storm and was still getting great colors as the light faded. Then we packed up and headed into town for dinner and a room. The only place open was a dive bar where we also met up with Daniel Shaw.