Join me as I recount the highlights of Tour 4 of the WeatherHolidays' 2024 storm chase. 10 days, 8 states, and 5,392 miles of pursuing nature's most dramatic storms.
In this blog, I will talk about some of the highlights of Tour 4 of the 2024 Weather Holidays storm chase tours, for which I drove one of the two vehicles carrying 5 guests and 3 staff. The tour was 10 days long, from the 8th of June through to the 17th. We all met at a hotel near Denver Airport on the 7th, a group of different nationalities from Ireland, Australia, Germany and England.
We drove 5,392 Miles across 8 States which were Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska. We witnessed 1 Tornado and countless structured supercells. Largest hail we encountered was golf ball size near Alexandria (MN) and we chased on 7 days of the days 10.
Here are the highlights of each of the ten days:
A fun chase across NE Colorado, we kept ahead of a supercell for a while. We drove through thick clouds of dust on dirt tracks with almost zero visibility blown by. strong outflow winds. On the way we came across two horses running down the dirt track spooked by the dusty outflow.
Finally we relented to the supercell and let it roll over us as we pulled up in the shelter of a gas station near I70 junction.and rode out horizontal rain driven by 80mph winds. Just east, 100mph gusts reported at Burlington CO.
A travel day north from Limon in Colorado to Lusk in Wyoming. A hotel with character for a change and we took over a bar in Lusk with See Natures Fury team of fellow Brit chasers in the evening, including our own lock-in.
Day 3 of the WeatherHolidays chase didn't win any prizes for storms, which quickly lined out into an outflow dominant squall line which raced off the Black Hills of South Dakota at 70mph, with little lighting. But they did look interesting for a time and at we got to drive through some nice scenery on the way to intercept the storms. Finished the day in Pierre, the capital of South Dakota.
Down day / travel day Tuesday east across South Dakota to our overnight stay in Sioux Falls - where we had a fun time playing crazy golf in the evening.
Wednesday- started the day in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, then headed up through western Minnesota. Later in the afternoon we intercepted some supercells. Took on some golf ball hail. It tried but no tornado. But rewarded by a nice sunset. Overnight stay in Forest City, Iowa (6th state of the tour so far).
After a nice lunch at Smokey D's in Des Moines, Iowa, a chase over northern Missouri in the afternoon, though the SPC 5% tornado risk was unwarranted, with storms quickly lining out along a cold front. A few pictures of storm clouds and lightning from Applebee's in St Joseph, MO. Overnight stay in Topeka in Kansas.
Not a bad chase day in NE Colorado, just missing the spinny things. Numerous storms developed around an area of low pressure over eastern Colorado then organised into a squall line and chased us northeast into Nebraska, where they finally caught up with us in Kearney, NE.- our overnight stay.
2 different supercells over eastern Nebraska yesterday and a possible tornado on supercell in SE Nebraska near Wilber, though couldn't tell if a circulation on the ground. Race north to NE Nebraska, but not in time to see tornadoes that dropped, but did witness strong rotation
Incredible chase day on Sunday. Sat for 4 hours in same spot watching slow-moving storms anchored to a boundary near McCook in SW Nebraska. After 30 mins of just rumbles in the clouds a barrage of frequent cloud to ground lightning started up, some of them got rather close to us. Following the C-G lightning barrage easing off, we repositioned west of McCook, Nebraska & were treated by jaw-dropping structure of an LP supercell catching the colours of the setting sun. The motion of the updrafts was something else, with the naked eye, you could see it rising.
Incredible chase day on Sunday. Sat for 4 hours in same spot watching slow-moving storms anchored to a boundary near McCook in SW Nebraska. After 30 mins of just rumbles in the clouds a barrage of frequent cloud to ground lightning started up, some of them got rather close to us pic.twitter.com/q8QHeDHmSS
— Nick's Weather Eye (@NickJF75) June 17, 2024
Many chasers gathered in North Platte, including some big names of the US meteorological word outside DOW 6 (Doppler on Wheels) parked in the Wallmart car park, which I got to look inside. Despite the forecast of tornadic supercells in the area later in the day, all the chasers that waited patiently until early evening were disappointed by the storms that did form struggle before fizzling out. So a bust all round.
If you are interested in joining one of the Weather Holidays storm chase tours in 2025 or maybe the Northern Lights tours, please visit the website
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