May 22, 2004

I invited my wife to chase storms on this day as she had never come along in the past. We left Lincoln around 1 pm and headed toward Geneva, NE. We had a late lunch at the local Pizza Hut and toured town while waiting for the action. Matt, Adam, and Zach (UNL students) met up with me in Geneva later. After a quick pit stop at the local grocery store we were gone: heading north on U.S. 81 towrd York and eventually Columbus. Towers were going up fast. I pulled over southwest of Columbus to snap a few shots of a wall cloud. We continued up U.S. 81 and then went east on NE64. The biggest mistake was leaving Schuyler on U.S. 30. Heading east, the road surface was milled which allowed for a massive amount of water to pond on the highway. After being pounded by wind, rain, and hail we decided to get off the piece of #$@% U.S. 30 and head south. I began my turn south but didn't see the massive puddle on the corner. I thought I was done but managed to trudge my car through. Sure enough I hear "flash flood warning for Dodge County" on the radio. Verified! We eventually pulled on to U.S. 77 and headed south. We were aware of a nasty supercell just southwest of Lincoln which was where we were headed. My main concern was getting home quickly as darkness was falling fast. It would have been really neat to capture the storms just south of Lincoln but it was very dark and not safe to punch the storm.