I started off this day as I do a usual chasing day - I woke up at 1:00, realized I was missing out on a potentially significant day, and hauled a** out the door to an undefined target. The night before I had set a possible target of just north of Brush, Colorado potentially all the way up to Scottsbluff, so I bolted in that direction. After arriving on scene with no lunch in the belly and a data-less data card, I turned around to see the V2 armada going south instead of north. Confused, I called the trustworthy nowcasters back at home and had them point me in the right direction. I was told Pueblo was the way to go which just shows how terrible of a teacher I am. Anyways, I decided to head back south to Brush to catch some data and in doing so I realized my panic over waking up late was all for not. Contrary to the RUC and NAM models, moisture wasn't making it quite far enough north to reach the moderate risk area. Instead it was pooling around the Palmer, creating one of those oh-so-delicious Palmer Divide upslope days. Arriving on scene, I was treated to this gorgeous LP supercell just east of the metro area:
It had just passed over a very slim corridor of heightened LCLs and was beginning to restrengthen. On a small tangent but still relative to the report, Mark Farnik and Zach Young somehow happened to drive by me in the middle of nowhere. I had found the most desolate road in the area and they had found me, bizarre. It ended up working out in my advantage not only because I now had company as I drooled over this beauty, but also because they had GPS. Yes, I admit, I had gotten myself lost in the middle of nowhere in the path of a potentially tornadic supercell...oops. Anyways, it soon turned into this:
At this point it had a radar indicated tornado warning on it. We had a perfect viewing spot but decided to get out of there before our cars got demolished by the hail. Five minutes later I turned around:
Bleh, lined out crap. It looked like the show was possibly coming to a close with three storms going through a linear merger. All attention turned to the once scrawny LP at the tail end of the newly formed line. On the way down, we almost got distracted by an embedded supercell with an impressive wall, but we pushed on.
We were still a good distance away from the storm, but that did not kill the show. Some of the most experienced chasers I've met later said this would become one of the most beautiful storms they've seen. We jogged north a mile or so to see what the other storm was doing and ultimately ended up killing the time we had in between the LP structure show and the tornado show. We pulled up just in time.
Tornado number one! Beautiful cone, perfectly back-lit by the setting sun. I could really go nuts on posting pictures but I'll just keep it at that. We headed east a little bit further to avoid the baseball sized hail that had already demolished numerous chasers' cars, and ended up in a relatively good position for the second tornado.
I'm still working on figuring out camera settings for backlit tornado photography, so I count this one as a success. After the second tornado cycled, the storm took on a more massive hailer, HP mode but still boasted convincing low level rotation. The base was so wide the entire storm wouldn't fit into one picture. This storm was an absolute beast.
I ended up bailing on the storm after dark and tried to head home except there was one problem. A new "sub-severe" line had developed behind the main storm and was in the way of Denver and I. The storm had a GR3 marker of .5-.75 inches (back and forth on the runs), but looking at the storm I put it closer to 1.5 inches. After waiting for a half an hour watching the line back build time and time again, I nutted up and core punched it. Problem is, I was right about the 1.5 inch hail...partially. I ended up turning around after my hood got smashed by another 2"+ stone, trying to save the rest of my car. I only ended up with three new dents but that golf ball really left its mark on my hood.
I'll be getting up some more reports here in the near future. I've been trying to recover from court dates, my two week chasecation, and the college visiting round I went on with the pops. Hopefully us Coloradans get some more storms here soon!
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