May 15, 2004

I was pretty exceited about the tornado potential for this day several days in advance. Around 36-hours out I selected O'Neill, NE as my potential chase target. After viewing some data the morning of the chase and discussion with James we decided to maintain the O'Neill target and headed toward Wayne, NE to pick up another chase partner Sam on the way to the target. Before getting to Wayne, we stopped in a the quaint little town of Hooper, NE to stretch our legs. After looking at some data in Wayne we maintained our target but were concerned with low-level clouds that would limit instability if they didn't lift. We just needed some instability to initiate the storms as the shear profile in the atmosphere was phenomenal and would help to counter lower CAPE values. We arrived in O'Neill and were disgusted with the amount of cloud cover still in the area. After a gas stop and a look at The Weather Channel, we were even more agitated to see a Tornado Watch outside our target area. We made a quick phone call to see what the satellite looked like and were informed there was plenty of clear air just to our south. We dropped due south down U.S. 281 toward Bartlett. There were towers going up fast to our west. We had two road choices and took the more southern route and headed toward Burwell. We could see several great looking cells when we were on the monster hill descending into Burwell. We decided the two cells to our north looked the best and stopped several times for photos. The southern cell may have dropped atleast one tornado as the funnel was close to the ground. We drove a few miles up the road and witnessed a fairly large tornado atleast five miles to our east/northeast. It dropped quickly and disappeared quickly, either rainwrapped or lifted. Unfortunately we couldn't get a shot of this beast. Later, we seen the damage path cause by the tornado which looked to be a good mile long. Trees on a farmstead were torn up severely. There was one tree that was launched a solid half mile into the center of a field. James and I both wanted to drop south toward other tornado warned cells but we had to drop Sam off back in Wayne. A shot at the other storms would have lost us a solid two hours. We paralleled the cyclical supercell near O'Neill for many miles as darkness descended quickly. Much to the chagrin of my wife, I arrived back home after being out twelve and a half hours with over 450 miles on the car. Thanks to James and Sam for sharing expenses during this expensive gas season. There are numerous pictures from this great chase. Enjoy!