The road into the park followed the lay of the land snaking up the side of a hill.
We finally made it all the way to Angora, NE. The wind flow on this particular day was a little weird, the surface flow was actually northerly, but all the other levels were skewed as well so everything balanced out.
The biggest issue remained a substianial lack of moisture, everything at this point was still bottled up east of Ogallala and slowly bleeding west.
The surface dew points were around 8C just across the border into Wyoming, enough to generate the needed instability but not really good for sustaining storms.
Thankfully, mid level moisture was migrating much faster than surface moisture and would ultimately do the majority of the work needed.
One storm sort of looked a little promising, but it was still high based, low topped, and poorly organized.
I took out the video camera to shoot some timelapse and kill time. Storm chasing is often a lot of rushing to wait.
Jen was also bored out of her mind so she snapped this picture of me.
The storm continued to boil but without surface moisture it quickly fell apart as it entered Nebraska and left Wyoming.
The land slopes downward every so slightly as you move eastward away from the mountains and this has a drying and warming downslope effect on westerly winds.
Easterly winds are instead up-slope winds forcing heat and moisture up into the atmsophere as the air rides upwards with the landscape and cools.
The problem with easterly upslope winds is that as storms move east into denser air the moisture layre in essence becomes thinner and dryer falling lower into the atmosphere and becoming harder for the storm to reach.
So as storms wander east away from higher land they loose the environmental instability that keeps them alive.
For a while there was only one other storm chaser and myself parked looking out over western Morrill County. Then the crowds began to show up as the day wore on. A group of chasers from Quebec arrived just as this high based rotating towering cumulus scooted past.
These antelope also came charging up the hill and abruptly stopped. I think they were a little surprised to see a herd of people atop this usually quiet hill.
Needless to say, they did not stick around long and quickly made their way down the hillside.
Eventually one storm drifting over appeared to become rooted in the boundary layer.
Almost immediately the storms base lowered and it had a very laminar look to it and I knew right away we were going to be in for a treat!
Well actually, the bowl shaped cumulus tower earlier indicated there was a lot of sculpting shear in the environment so I sort of already knew what was coming.
The storm sure took its sweet time drifting over (I love slow moving storms) and the base really had some wonderful laminar curves and jagged inflow scud.
The lightning and thunder was pretty continuous with a constant rumbling roar.
Many storm chasers try and keep people out of the shot, they literally go out of their way to keep the shot open, free and isolated.
While that works, when you have major storm chaser convergences and other people around, your lying to your viewing audience. Your telling them the storm was out there with you in isolation meanwhile the road side is packed with people.
In this case, I was one of the few storm chasers between North Port and Broadwater. So I put my car in the shot, that's the way it was!
If you look closely you can she Jen in the car looking intently at the radar.
I missed my turn earlier in the chase by Northport and was forced to loop around at Broadwater. This loop actually worked out well, it put me right under the rain free base.
There was another chaser and some locals parked in a... ugh.... well I'm not sure what it was, car pool lot???
Anyway, I spoke with them and we watched a little nodule on the back of the storm spin. It definitely had potential but I could tell this storm was definitely staying elevated.
More importantly, a second storm to the south was really beginning to rock on radar and I knew it was going to put on an even better show!
