Storm Chaser Colorado

May 11, 2005 West Kansas/Nebraska

Home

Grain bin with skid marks where it was pushed along the hill

House undamaged but trees snapped in half

Golfball size hail near the tornado damage

Mileage: 700

Chasers: Verne Carlson, Amos Magliocco, Tony Laubach, Eric Nuygen, Katie Burtis, Scott Currens, Patty and John from UNC, Jon Merage and Sean.

Left Salina, KS at 10:00am and headed west on I-70 to Colby, KS where we found wifi, had lunch and waited for the cap to break.  SPC issued the first PDS tornado watch and we headed north along 83 following a developing storm.  Katie Burtis and I broke from the rest of the group and shot around a detour and then headed north towards McCook, NE where we could either check out the storms to the north or head west and intercept the storms in Yuma county CO.  We heard of a large tornado on the ground to the north so we headed up into a low foggy supercell in Frontier county where we encountered a grain bin that was tossed on the side of the road, irrigation pipes strewn all over the hillside and trees snapped in half.  Continued north east but the visibility was very poor and seeing anything would be impossible.  Picked our route back to Denver so that we would intercept the cells that were now turning HP from CO.  Got back home at 11:00pm.