June 11, 2003 Rose Nebraska Tornado

I left work at 3:30 and went for it. The thought was to head west and keep grabbing radar images. The best shear was north into at least nc NE and on up into SD. Instability was better to the south. SFC low and sfc winds weren't all that impressive but were ok in a small area. The big blobs down by North Platte didin't look too promising. 2 tiny blips show up se of Ainsworth while I was in Albion. I said that is my show right there and it's going to drop se and go bonkers. Well I was half right. I was shocked when I learned they were moving ne, not good for me to intercept. But they were moving very slowly. In Burwell radar showed them rather pathetic looking and a new rather pathetic thing west of Burwell. Steve Peterson infrormed me the ones north were tornado warned, so a fairly easy decision there. I headed north.

The main storm up there looked ok, but the precip to its south seemed like it'd surely kill the show. Notice that precip south of the tornado. Ese winds here at about 15mph. This funnel was there for a good 5 minutes before it touched down. I'd estimate it was on the ground up to 2 minutes.

It thinned out and pushed south into the rain from the southern storm.

After watching that I meet up with Steve Peterson and we watch this new storm take on some rather nice structure. Sorry for the green, I set my cam to nightshot mode to try and brighten things up some.

CGs were coming down somewhat close to us, even at this distance. They were also streaking overhead.

Southern end of the wall cloud changed shape rather quickly and came in contact with the ground. One point it looked like a big ol wedge.

We have no way of knowing if there was tornadic circulation on the ground, there likely was in some fashion.

Steve Peterson has a new nickname-Sandhills Steve. Man he's going to kill me for this. Oh well I'm sure I'll do something similar down the "road". This is the definition of middle of nowhere. It is Bob's road to the extreme. We took it west off the highway that goes ne out of Burwell. If I had met another car I'd have to drive backwards for miles. This "road" is one lane. We were likely 8-10 miles off the highway here. We started getting precip on us from the tornadic storm to our west, which was drifting east at us. I was like, Steve, you didn't just get stuck(in my head at this time). Over half of his front tires were in the sand. He was now stuck as can be.

Thank god Chris Lenz had pulled up a bit ago and was talking with us, and he had a tow rope on him. He pulled Steve out with no problem. Thanks Chris!

It was dark now and the storms were getting less interesting, so the chase ended here.