Friday 12th May 2023 - Nebraska (Enhanced Risk)

After yesterdays frustrating chase today we would find the Low and sit just north of it all day. An early Lunch/Brunch in Grand Island Perkins we were off and in good position for an early start, Storms had started initiating early around 1pm and SPC had a 10% Hatched Risk for Tornadoes today so some pretty confident forecasters and the early signs were good. Some lovely low topped Storms were already to our North and we got onto 1 near Burwell that came into view, heavy rain at first but once the core cleared our road a bowl funnel descended from a rotating wall cloud and quick enough a large cone Tornado was on the ground 3 miles to our North near the Town of Ericsson (NE) This Tornado stayed over mainly open fields and did some tree damage but never impacted the small town thankfully and was on the ground for around 9 minutes. As is the case with these set ups you need to keep moving east with the Low Pressure so off we went to the next Supercell in the line to our east, this also had a rapid fire Tornado Warning on it and literally produced in front of us, transitioning from a wedge to a rope Tornado over another open field. My attention was now drawn to a much larger Supercell way off to the South East and this was no Low Topped Supercell but a big 60,000ft monster that had erupted some way away from the Low Pressure. I plotted an intercept course to near a town called Lyons near the Nebraska and Iowa border making sure we had a river crossing, getting there was tough as we had another Tornadic Storm cross our path near Pilger which also put down a brief weak Tornado (Number 3 Already!!) I finally got us on a North South Road with the Violent Wedge to our South West moving straight North about 3 miles west of our road, we could hear the thing but it was heavily rain wrapped. It was also occluding to the North West which is never a good sign and denotes a Tornado in its final phases. Sure enough 2 radar scans later and no circulation was showing on Velocities. We crossed the River Crossing bridge into Iowa and noticed the storms had finally lined out so made a run for our Hotel some food and get ready for the line to hit our hotel a few hours later.

All in all a great days chasing and redemption for yesterdays massive cock up!! The old saying dont let the same dog bite you twice sprung to my mind.

Some Pics Below