2003 CHASE SEASON

This little storm stalled my trip up to Blackhawk. After I got off work, a severe thunderstorm warning was issued for a cell drifting out of the Boulder area directly towards downtown Denver. I intercepted the storm on I-25 just south of the 6th Ave exit where hail as big as quarters sized began to fall. The storm died quickly near downtown.

Following up on last month’s very successful Nebraska chase, I ventured out of Denver early in the morning to position myself in the MODERATE RISK area of southwestern Nebraska.  As the day got off to a slow start, I found myself spending a lot of time in Ogallalla before heading back into Colorado to intercept [...]

My target was South Dakota, but work and school kept me on a short leash and thus the two tornadoes I bagged in Nebraska paled in comparison to what went on to my north in South Dakota. None-the-less, myself and my good friend, Mary made the best of our short leash and still had a pretty decent day.

Chased my very first high risk in the Texas Panhandle and was rewarded with a pair of tornadoes, one being the satellite to the Stratford wedge and a second after dark near Guymon, Oklahoma. Did all of this between a closing shift the night before and an opening shift the morning after.

For the second day in a row, I found myself under a heavy hailcore! This time, it was here in town right at rush hour and made a huge mess of traffic as hail accumulated about half a foot deep on roads making travel very slow for the rest of the evening.

An accumulating hailstorm on the north side of Fort Morgan, Colorado made for a fun afternoon for my chase partner, James, and I as we followed the storm along I-76 into Fort Morgan where we let it core us with nickel-sized hail.