June 22nd gave a nice opportunity for a local chase, while tornado risk was low there was a warm front extending from a low over Eastern Wyoming draped across South Dakota and Nebraska that was expected to lift north throughout the day. Initiation was expected north of the front in Northeast Nebraska into Iowa.
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After the tornado in Selden on the 24th, I went home to get my phone replace since it bricked itself while I was out. Luckily I was able to put my SIM card in my iPad so I could still get data otherwise that chase would have been interesting. So I spent the 25th home taking care of that and came back out on the 26th for two final days. This day we were expecting a warm front to stretch across northern Kansas and early thunderstorm development was pretty likely.
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May 24th featured a stalled front across Kansas into Iowa and Minnesota with mid 60°F dewpoints pooling on the front while a shortwave trough was grazing the area presented a great opportunity for severe weather especially where any residual outflow boundaries might exist. I spent the night in Goodland and was planning to head down to Tribune or Leoti for my target.
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I began the day at a hotel in Chadron because I was lazy the previous day and relied on the SPC day 2 forecast to figure out where I needed to be. They were showing a 5% tornado risk in western South Dakota so I figured get as far north as I could. That turned out to bite me in the ass as when I woke up and did my forecast it looked like I needed to be back in Colorado and the SPC 13z day one expanded the 5% risk all the way down past I-70 along the Colorado/Kansas border.
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Meridonal flow along with 60 degree dewpoints impinging on the highplains of Colorado and New Mexico meant a good shot at severe thunderstorms in the high plains. While low level shear was initially lacking, it was forecast to pick up as the day wore on so there was a shot a tornado. I had spent the night in Sidney after a bust the previous day as we entered day 2 of my mini chase vacation.
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