Friday 23rd June 2023 - WY/NE (Enhanced Risk)
This would be our last chase of the Tornado Season and were hopeful that we could end on a High. Started the day in Colorado Springs and the target was Cheyenne for Lunch and then Chugwater for some redemption from 2 days ago. Today we had HRRR like a dog with a bone again on a lone Supercell travelling from Chuggy to the SW Nebraska Panhandle and no pesky storms to screw things up today, once again we had a Low Pressure sitting on the CO/WY Border and a warm front draped across from the Low across to the Nebraska Panhandle, ample moisture was in place and 65 knots of Shear promoting Giant Hail 45% and 5% on the Tornado Chances. Our first look at the Storm of the day showed one of the strongest bases I have ever seen coming off the Front Range and this storm just sat to the North of Chugwater for what seemed like hours ingesting numerous updraughts until it finally took off around 5pm and started its almost straight eastwards progress and luckily for everyone this Storm just stayed north of the Highway as it rolled across to Scottsbluff for most of its life making for easy intercepts.
The RFD and Hook echo finally impacted us about 5 miles east of Chugwater and the Supercell then really tightened up with a rotating white mesocyclone just to our north, a Tornado was imminant surely and sure enough a very quick 1 minute touchdown occured in a field to our north, a very slim pencil Tornado but more was to come as we could already see the next occlusion to the east so it was time to travel another 7 miles to get back in front of the rotating wallcloud.
I pulled off onto a country road with what seemed like every other chaser in the USA at that time, the road was packed and sure enough a black cone funnel was dancing around 2 miles to our North West with sporadic touchdowns as it danced behind a farmhouse. As the Tornado moved east just to our North we were treated to a ghostly white Tornado drilling the ground only a matter of a few hundred yards away. Tornado number 2 of the day and already the Supercell was occluding the next meso for Tornadoes number 3 and 4 which would drop quite quickly.
We headed east some more towards Hawk Springs down a really beautiful canyon road and stopped just west of Hawk Springs for Tornado number 4 a real stout tall cone Tornado and this was a quick touchdown and the storm was already over Hawk Springs getting ready to drop another significant Tornado.
Road Options started to get a bit harder now so we headed south to LaGrange and then east again to get in front of the Mesocyclone and sure enough Tornado number 5 came out of the rain to our North West, this was a much bigger longer lived Tornado that had been buried in the rain for a good 15 minutes while we were re-positioning. The Rope out stage was beautiful and long lived though.
Once again we re-positioned this time towards Gering and Scottsbluff where we stopped just south of a very large Hail wrapped Wedge Tornado that we could see just to our north, this caused some damage to houses in Gering and we would learn later this was rated an EF1 Tornado.
Around now darkness was starting to arrive so we set sail for Chillis for some food as we had just had an exhausting day but Mother Nature was not finished with us yet and another LP Supercell had initiated west of Town and gained a Tornado Warning, we never saw any confirmed Tornadoes with this storm but noticed a few funnels half way to the ground. This Storm then gained a new warning of destructive 60mph Baseball sized hail which was heading straight towards us and the Chillis where we had booked a table.
We decided to hide the cars across the road and ride out the hail, and boy was that a good decision as Baseballs did indeed start falling and started to smash through the roof of the gas stations ceiling, every car not covered outside got destroyed by the hail as well, this went on for around 10 minutes and we documented and filmed every minute of it. An absolutely incredible day ending with 6 Tornadoes and a Destructive Hailstorm.
