May 17th, 2018 Southern High Plains Storms

Tornadoes: 0

Highest Wind Gust: N/A

Largest Hail: N/A

Given a dreadfully slow 2018 so far, and final exams looming during the only (also somewhat lackluster) active period thus far in the season, it was mid-May and I hadn't chased once. Isaac Polanski and I saw some potential for a few marginal chase days from May 17-19th with broad, modest SW flow at 500mb overspreading generally moisture-starved, but still barely workable atmosphere at the surface. With no other chase potential in sight in the medium range, we decided to take a chance on a few structure days and maybe a slight chance at a brief tornado if something could align the right way.

Below are 500 mb winds at 00z. Note that although winds immediately in the vicinity of storm development on the High Plains are westerly, flow abruptly shifts to northerly further east. This doesn't bode well for moisture return, and dewpoints were largely in the mid-to-upper 50s through the target area.

SPC issued a slight risk with a 2% tornado contour across northeast Colorado into western Nebraska. We opted to play further south, though, as that target looked to become linear very quickly, and a discrete mode was more likely from southwest Kansas into the Texas Panhandle.

We left my house around 10pm the night before and took turns driving through the night. As the sun finally rose, we stopped where we were south of Kearney, NE to gawk at the scenery:

Our initial target of Goodland, KS was made by mid-morning. We chose there as a target to split the difference between a CO/NE and SW KS play so we could make a final decision between the two. We chose the southern and made our way towards Lamar, CO to await initiation. On the way to Lamar, never having been to this area of Colorado, I was intrigued by the landscape change. Burlington, where we got off I-70 to begin southward, was much greener than the desert-transition-type landscape present in southeast Colorado. Crop fields gave way to an arid dry grassland/cacti combination as we continued to Lamar. I was also surprised to see that the town looked more like a glorified truck stop than an actual city or town. I kinda liked the aura the place gave off, like we were truly out west.

We stopped at a gas station in town where we saw Roger Hill and the Silver Lining Tours crew also awaiting storm formation. After about half an hour of waiting, one lone patch of cumulus towers was building to the southwest. We watched them grow into a (ridiculously) high-based storm, and we took off to document it.

Although it was kind of a pretty scene, it was one of the most sickly-looking storms I'd ever seen. It spit out a few CG strikes before it gave out completely. At this point, we saw that storms were starting to erupt to our southeast in the Oklahoma Panhandle. We went off toward them, finally gaining a visual on the backside of one supercell east of Boise City:

At this time, the storm was throwing off a left split, as can be seen by the tower on the left. It was a majestic scene, although a bit of an underwhelming one for the distance driven. A few minutes later, a shear funnel developed off the side of the right mover's updraft tower:

It was the highlight of the chase...which is not saying that much. Still, it was pretty cool to see. We continued toward the storm, and when we finally got close enough to see the base clearly, it fell apart. As the storm died, it put on one last show with a rainbow painted across the Oklahoma sky:

Shortly after, we found Paxton Biggs pulled over and we talked to him for a few minutes before parting ways. We set off for Garden City, KS to finally get some sleep and get into position for the next day's chase.

Nearby 00z observed soundings gave chasers all they needed to know about why everything struggled. Big cap, lots of convective inhibition:

It was a day of exploring at least. I also crossed two states off my visited list: Kansas and Oklahoma. Somehow, I'd never set foot in those two VERY high profile chase states until several years into my chasing career. It's too bad it had to be in 2018, when they had little to show off.

SPC Storm Reports: