May 30 was another day of chasing scraps — and being in the vicinity of a tornado but not actually seeing it.
Alethea and I chased with Jason, heading into Nebraska and following one storm after another. We got separated, and Alethea and I had the pleasure of being gassed by a farmer near Imperial who, without warning, sprayed us and some other chasers with fungicide (at least I think that’s what it was based on the markings on the tank) as we were parked at the edge of a field. And yes, he had plenty of time to tell us to get lost beforehand. I’d just thought the tractor looked cool against the stormy sky. How naive I was.
Most of the people we meet in the Plains are so nice. But there’s always the occasional serial killer, so watch out.
Anyway, we were still breathing, barely, so we fled and watched those storms die — one formed a high-based funnel that twisted into oblivion — and then we headed north and east to meet up with Jason near Hayes Center.
This cell began to corkscrew but was too high-based to do more.
There was gorgeous, hard convection north of us that made for a very pretty picture. Jason got some drone shots.
We repositioned to get closer, and one storm near Wellfleet produced the tornado. It also produced reported 3.5-inch hail. We found thoroughly melted 2-inch hail at the side of the road. So while we avoided the big chunks of ice, we also missed the tornado.
Still, we saw some incredible structure … a tilted updraft rippling with mammatus clouds.
A panorama shows the storm's dramatic structure.
At Lake Maloney, south of North Platte, the storm to the north produced some lightning but none that played for my camera. It was still light out, but we attempted to pursue the lightning into the night. I caught a couple of bolts, nothing exciting, and then we parted ways. Jason planned to chase on his way home, and we knew we had one more chase left.
It was a bittersweet farewell. We saw so few of our friends this year. And not to get too melancholy, but there aren’t that many years left.
What we didn’t know is how amazing the next chase would be, in a totally unexpected way.
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