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June 13
June
13 Continued
Extremely large hail
greeted me as I crossed into Nebraska- hardly what I would
call a welcome!!! The hail increased dramatically as I approached Red Cloud.
Hailstones sizes ranged from quarter sized to nearly softball sized from 2 miles
south of town into the city of Red Cloud. The unusual thing about this hail was
that it was very soft and disintegrated upon impact- kind of like a loosely packed
snowball. Only these "snowballs" were falling from 30,000 feet up!! I can
surmise
that the reason the hailstones were so large, but not what I would call damaging
was the temperatures were hot but the updraft was very intense. This would allow
the hailstones to grow very large but the melting kept the hail from becoming a
solid/hard composition. This theory could also be backed up by the fact that over
100 degree air was working into the sw side of the storm. While this theory will
probably be hard to fully understand, this was certainly plausible. The large hail
dropped on the stunned residents of Red Cloud- probably stunned that the huge
hail was not damaging property!! I can honestly say that if this hail was of the hard
variety, the town of Red Cloud would have had millions in property damage.
I continued to be amused
by the surreal hail falling around my Blazer. It was like
hundreds of very large marshmallows thumping on top of my vehicle. I headed
east into more dream-like hail, but started to notice that rotation was again on the
increase with the wall cloud to my southeast. At 5:40 pm, both circulations were
tightening up quickly. The circulation to the southeast produced a tornado at 5:44
pm southwest of Guide Rock Ne. The tornado was on the ground for a minute or
two but was seen as a dust whirl underneath the wall cloud. Also at this time, the
second circulation was starting to take on a "hornet's nest" appearance just
north
of U.S. 136. The storm slowed its forward progress and also developed yet other
small dusty spin-ups northwest of Bostwick Ne. Rapid cyclonic circulation was
noted with both mesocyclones, and the tornadoes were embedded within rain
curtains surrounding the tornadoes. I watched the most impressive tornado of
the day touch down about 5 miles northwest of Bostwick. The tornado remained
nearly stationary for a few minutes before it was "swept" southward by outflow
from the core to the north. This tornado was very similar to Colorado's high plains
tornadoes which are frequent during June and July. I watched this tornado slowly spin out,
and then decided to head east with the southern circulation.
Further east, I
encountered large hail (up to golfball sized) once again near the
small town of Smyrna Ne or north of the larger town of Superior Ne. I was trying
to decide if the storm I was on was weakening or "pulsing". The hail was harder
now so I was beginning to think the mid-levels were starting to cool. I followed
the storm for about 10 minutes and I finally came to the realization that the storm
was indeed on the downward cycle. A new severe storm was near Republic Ks
at this time, so I decided to head across to Hebron Ne where I could take U.S. 81
south towards the Kansas border. As I passed south of Hebron, I could now see
what looked to be like a small HP supercell to the south. I plotted its course to
the northeast and I would be able to intercept the storm very near Chester Ne on
the state line. I dropped south to the small but definitely rotating HP supercell. I
pressed on into the dreaded "bears cage" and through the increasing core. As
I noticed breaks to the south, my windshield wipers were raised outward from
the windshield. The winds roared outside with gusts well over 80 mph from the
north-northeast. I found the circulation that was for certain!! In fact I almost found
the core of a weak tornado( F-1) which crossed right in front of my location. The
tornado was on the ground for a few miles apparently as I came up on tornado
damage the further south I went down U.S. 81. At 6:36 pm, my windshield wiper
on the driver's side was blown off the wiper arm. The tornado was underway in
front of me not more than 1/2 mile!! The exact location of the tornado at 6:38 pm
was 2 miles south of Chester Ne in N.Republic Co. Kansas. I pulled over for a
few minutes to survey the 50-100 yard wide damage path and to watch the small
tornado track further on to the northeast.
I attempted to chase this
tornado further, but the storm left me quickly. About this
time about 300 miles to my south, a monster supercell was heading through the northern
sections of Oklahoma City. Several tornadoes were reported across this area, and a strong
tornado ( F-2) struck the NE section of Oklahoma City near the
Frontier City amusement park. The cap definitely broke there!! Now I had to head
back to Oklahoma and into a state of storm chaser depression!!
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