Blog

26 May

May 26, 2021 – Northwest Kansas

After the tornado in Selden on the 24th, I went home to get my phone replace since it bricked itself while I was out. Luckily I was able to put my SIM card in my iPad so I could still get data otherwise that chase would have been interesting. So I spent the 25th home taking care of that and came back out on the 26th for two final days. This day we were expecting a warm front to stretch across northern Kansas and early thunderstorm development was pretty likely.

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24 May

May 24, 2021 – Selden, Kansas Tornado

May 24th featured a stalled front across Kansas into Iowa and Minnesota with mid 60°F dewpoints pooling on the front while a shortwave trough was grazing the area presented a great opportunity for severe weather especially where any residual outflow boundaries might exist. I spent the night in Goodland and was planning to head down to Tribune or Leoti for my target.

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23 May

May 23, 2021 – Limon, Colorado

I began the day at a hotel in Chadron because I was lazy the previous day and relied on the SPC day 2 forecast to figure out where I needed to be. They were showing a 5% tornado risk in western South Dakota so I figured get as far north as I could. That turned out to bite me in the ass as when I woke up and did my forecast it looked like I needed to be back in Colorado and the SPC 13z day one expanded the 5% risk all the way down past I-70 along the Colorado/Kansas border.

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22 May

May 22, 2021 – Northeast Colorado

Meridonal flow along with 60 degree dewpoints impinging on the highplains of Colorado and New Mexico meant a good shot at severe thunderstorms in the high plains. While low level shear was initially lacking, it was forecast to pick up as the day wore on so there was a shot a tornado. I had spent the night in Sidney after a bust the previous day as we entered day 2 of my mini chase vacation.

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