VORTEX 2: Day 26
The armada spent the night in Colby, KS. This morning the decision that faced them was to either target storms that might develop in the northern Texas panhandle and then move south, or to target the storms in NE CO / SE WY and which would move southeast. Being in Colby, KS and the realization that the severe weather threat tomorrow afternoon and evening appeared to be better over the northern target than the southern one, the armada chose to target the northern choice. The feeling was while the meteorology was slightly better to the south, the driving down there to chase storms away from where they would need to be the next day it wasn’t worth it.
The armada headed to Byers, CO with the intent of chasing storms that might develop in and around the Denver area. Enroute to this target, the armada realized that the low clouds and storms already developing by lunch time would probably spell doom for any threat of supercells. Based on this they headed to Greeley, CO and waited for the next wave of thunderstorms. Unfortunately, the next wave of thunderstorms also developed too early and left a rain-cooled atmosphere in its wake. This cool air ruined any chance for supercells in this area, so the armada set its sights on storms developing north of Cheyenne.
These new thunderstorms were slowly becoming supercells and exhibited transient mesocyclone features. By the time they got up to Cheyenne, WY and headed east on I80, these storms were bonified supercells (albeit weak ones). The armada set up a deployment and collected some data as the storm moved into Nebraska. Interestingly, while not a true supercellular tornado, one of the mobile mesonet probes observed a brief landspout tornado!
About the time they armada was going to call it quits for the day, a new thunderstorm developed extremely quickly to their west in the Cheyenne, WY area along colliding outflow boundaries. This storm quickly became a supercell and tracked through the north and east side of Cheyenne, WY. The storm exhibited fairly decent low-level rotation but there were no reports of tornadoes. Several members of the armada experienced golf ball sized hail, but as of this writing, there has not been any damage to the vehicles.
Currently, the armada is experiencing thunderstorms enroute to their hotel. I’ll be sitting here watching their safety until they reach their destination or the storms have passed.
About Patrick
Patrick Marsh is a Ph.D. student at the University of Oklahoma's School of Meteorology. He earned a Bachelors of Science in Mathematics and Physics (cum laude) from the University of Arkansas in 2005 and a Masters of Science in Meteorology in 2007. In addition to working on his doctorate, Patrick serves as the National Severe Storms Laboratory Liaison to the Hazardous Weather Testbed where his research interests lie in working with operational forecasters, data mining, data visualization, and all things high-impact weather. For more about Patrick's work, check out his complete CV!
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