Chase Log - April 18, 2005 - Geneva, NE

Had some interesting weather around Lincoln today--good enough to warrant my first storm chase of 2005! Two supercells were straddling I-80 west of Lincoln near York, so Matt, Adam, and I figured we had a good chance of at least one of them doing something interesting!

All times are CDT.

We left Lincoln at approximately 19:30 from Exit 399 and headed west on I-80. We turned off I-80 at exit 369 and headed south on NE-80E to Friend. We were treated to some brilliant golden clouds and relatively peaceful conditions along the way.

At Friend, we went east on US-6 until turning south on NE-15. Shortly thereafter, we encountered torrential rain (the NWS estimated rainfall amounts at 2-3"/hr) and small to mid-sized hail. Fearing we were nearing the core, and with daylight quickly fading, we turned west on NE-41. This proved to be very fortunate, as we avoided the core and were soon rewarded with a dancing wall cloud south and west of Milligan! The wall cloud was fairly disorganized and dissipated about the same time we reached US-81 at Geneva. While we weren't able to watch the wall cloud for long, it was still quite fun, as it was beautifully backlit by the frequent lightning.

At US-81 we headed south for a short time before turning east onto NE-74 and stopping near Strang in hopes the wall cloud might reappear. Alas, the storm's energy was cut off by a more powerful storm further to the south, and our evening ended due to insufficient light levels. We took US-81 north to I-80 and returned to Lincoln.

Not too bad for a half-assed first storm chase! We had time to refine our "famous last words of storm chasers" humor and introduced Adam to the fun. Some people do drugs, some do extreme sports...I chase storms... A big thanks to Matt for graciously sacrificing his car for our noble quest!

On a more frustrating note, at the junction of US-81 and NE-74, a congregation of truckers had pulled onto the shoulder to wait out the storm. While this alone isn't bad, a few local redneck ranchers had decided to park their pickups and horse trailers in the southbound driving lanes of US-81! They were standing outside their trucks talking to each other and watching the storm--oblivious to the traffic hazard they were creating by blocking one of the two southbound lanes! As we passed, I angrily yelled at them to move their trucks out of the driving lanes. I swear, people have no common sense and/or respect for others. At least they moved their trucks.