May 8, 2004 Chase Summary

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Chasers: Dave Lewison, Chris Kridler

May 8, 2004 SPC OUTLOOKS: 1300Z, 1630Z, 2000Z

We started the day in Blair Nebraska after another dissappointing day on the Plains. Scott's friend Brian had to be on a plane back to NYC the following morning, so we had lunch with them one last time before they headed out. We would re-join them a couple days later.

Downtown Blair NE: Us four "genuine" New Yorkers going to the New York Bar & Grill. Just like home, but without the street crime! :-)

After Scott, Pete & Brian left, Chris & I did a little sight-seeing around Blair, near the MO River.

I think Mike Hollingshead will recognize this place!

We believed the best chance at initiation was near Sioux City, so we headed north.

Along the way, there were a few pretty scenes.

Ah ha! Finally some rotation! Dust devils kept forming in this field, so we stopped for about 20 minutes to video them.

Two on the ground! They were actually rotating around each other, kind of like a multivortex.

DEBRIS!!

Okay, enough pitiful dust devils... After a few hours getting data in Sioux City, the first convection (of the week!) fires SE of town, so we head down to investigate.

From this radar image, it wasn't anything too spectacular, but certainly better than what we had been used to the past several days.

6:40 PM

6:40 PM

6:40 PM: Now SE of Bayard, we entered a fresh hail swath with fog and intense rain. We were basically flying blind at this point.

7:36 PM: A bowing segment with a nasty HP supercell on the eastern side. It almost has an "eye" of sorts!

7:11 PM

7:35 PM: Having finally reached I-80, we blasted east in an attempt to get ahead. We didn't wanna mess with that rain-wrapped meso, so the goal was to get south and in the path of the bowing out segment to the west.

7:51 PM

7:51 PM: We are now in Earlham under a metal awning, watching what little the storm had to offer. Some nice lightning, copious quarter-sized hail, but not much wind.

We stayed in town for about 30 minutes before calling it a day.

Later that evening in Des Moines, we had a nearly continuous lightning display.

Amidst the CG's, part II of our chase caravan arrived: Mark Robinson, Dave Sills and Sarah Scriver, all from Ontario Canada met up with us here.