Day 2: Burlington, CO to Ogallala, NE

We started the day in Burlington, heading north. At a pit stop we found some topical food:

Holyoke, CO:

Lunch was at Sidney, NE. The 1980s Cadillac was driven away soon afterwards - it had plenty of battle scars from over the years:

Another state, this time Wyoming, making it 6 states in the first 2 days chasing! A fence had gathered a collection of tumbleweeds:

This was a good sign; a 'horseshoe vortex', indicating good shear in the lower atmosphere:

Storms started to organise by early evening near Albin, WY:

The storm developed several wall clouds as we tried to get into a good position ahead of it:

Now a supercell, it crossed in to Nebraska, and we closed in on it just west of the town of Broadwater, NE. As we approached town we heard a look noise pass over the cars, like a jet engine - I'd never heard anything like it before. So much was happening we only really recollected after the event! At the time we were right under the main circulation on radar (see below, courtesy radarscope app). A minute or so later the cars were hit by 50mph+ winds from one direction, then the opposite direction, indicating we were indeed right underneath the mesocyclone. We started to get in to some marble-sized hail and as we cleared some trees noticed circulation on the ground just 500 yds or so to our south in a field. My first tornado! There was no condensed funnel to the ground, but circulation above was very clear. Unfortunately we were unable to stop the cars, so had to capture it as we went along:

Some grabs from Radarscope to show radar and velocities at the time. Our position is the blue circle:

After just a couple of minutes the tornado became rain-wrapped and we lost sight of it. To get ahead of the storm we continued through the core. We saw some damage where the tornado had crossed the road ahead of us, after we had seen it. We saw damaged irrigation equipment and some downed powerlines through the heavy rain and hail:

When we got ahead of the storm it started to weaken. We stopped to catch up with some other storm chasers while the storm caught us up:

After a brief fuel stop and some very close CG lightning in Oshkosh, NE, we stopped to watch the sunset near Ogallala, NE. On the ground we found some fairly decent sized hail left over:

A line of storms continued to push up towards us from the west so we set up position and were able to shoot an amazing lightning display for a good 30 minutes or more:

Later in the evening, at our hotel in Ogallala, NE, a supercell skimmed past within a mile or so, giving a further lightning show. Shame about the power lines!: