Our last chase day on the high plains was also set up to be a pretty marginal day. We headed out of Goodland toward far northeast Colorado and took in some more sights along the way.
Barn in northeast Kansas
We caught our storm of the day near Holyoke as it rolled southeast out of the Nebraska Panhandle. It sported a proto-wall cloud for a while as it churned closer. It had a buddy to its east that looked better on radar at a few points, but that cell was getting seeded and the base was obscured much of the time. We had a really good view on a hilltop south of Holyoke and spent about a half hour watching both cells kick up dust storms as the western one drew some of the dust up into its updraft.
Farm and building supercell south of Holyoke || 2150Z
Pair of cells south of Holyoke || 2155Z
Shooting time lapse || 2200Z
Gust fronts on both cells kicking up dust || 2210Z
Eventually they swept by just to our north and teased some brief rotation in a quasi-RFD push, at the same time things seemed to be generally gusting out. We paced it along some pretty rugged roads through Alvin and southeast into Nebraska. The west edge of the convection wound down as the eastern cell took over. We were too far out of position on slow, twisty roads to catch it. As we wound our way back to better road options, we paused to get a box tortoise out of the road and get closer look at it.
Gust front with brief rotation in a slot on the leading edge || 2215Z
Visiting with a Nebraska box tortoise
My daughter seeing if tortoise wants a grape
Some messy convection was rolling east along Highway 36. So we headed back into Colorado between Idalia and Burlington to check out the gust front before ending our trip with great sunset views.
Convection struggling to stay cohesive south of Idalia || 0120Z
Advancing gust front over Burlington || 0150Z
Remains of a gust front south of Burlington || 0200Z
Fiery Colorado sunset || 0220Z
A small bit of twilight convection over far west Kansas || 0250Z
Apart from the rough road patch east of Alvin, the day was pretty easy-going and I had time for a lot of time lapse photography. Those time lapse sequences and other clips from the trip are in the first segment of the 2015 Storm Chase video I wrapped up last month.
