May 11 2014: Nebraska Tornadoes

This chase day was a very successful chase day for us as we made a return back to the state of Nebraska after a recent "Bust" chase a few weeks prior near Omaha.

We initially targeted far southwest Iowa early in the weekend, but as the big day arrived targeting refinements honed in on an area of south central Nebraska between Beatrice and York.

As the day went on becoming very warm humid and extremely unstable along a warm front that was pressing northward into the state, Thunderstorms explosively developed and quickly became violent producing a large wedge tornado near Sutton Nebraska which had severely damaged the town itself.

The people of Sutton are in our thoughts each day as they work through the long clean up and recovery process.

Nick and I made it just to the northeast of Sutton near Grafton were we witnessed 2 separate tornadoes touch down near the town. We tracked this violent storm from the Lincoln Nebraska area back east to the western side of Des Monies Iowa where we witnessed a 3rd tornado for the day near Grimes and Waukee on the far northwest edge of Des Monies as a violent nocturnal tornado tracked from Lake Panorama to the Dallas Center area were we caught glimpses of the tornado through lightning and power flashes to our northwest. This nocturnal tornado in Dallas County was rated EF-2 and EF-0 along its track and was associated with a front squall line edge inflow notch couplet.

 Overall it turned out to be a great chase day for us as well as many other of our good friends including Bill Doms, Tony Perkins and Brad Winger who we crossed paths with far from our home state of Minnesota.

Awesome back-lit Snake drill bit Tornado shown here 3 miles west of the town of Grafton in Filmore County Nebraska.

Large broad circulation on the ground shown here violently rotating just northwest of Sutton, NE, Likely the remnant circulation of what was a beastly wedge just moments before and further to the southwest of Sutton.

Sun back-lit snake tornado near Grafton NE getting very close to a large farm irrigation rig set!

Tight rapidly rotating and cycling meso with a small funnel cloud near US Hwy 81 near Fairmont NE.

Nick facing the beast and the strong inflow winds head on as he films the newly cycling meso to the northwest near Exeter Nebraska.

Amazing Anti-Cyclonic & wildly rotating Meso trying to do it again just east of US Hwy 81 near Exeter Nebraska.

View of dual image radar with the Anti-Cyclonic Meso spinning northeast across the road to the north of us.

Nick filming the spectacular contrast Anti-Cyclonic rotating Meso near Exeter Nebraska.

Shelf cloud shown here near Ruby in Seward County NE.

Razor sharp ghostly shelf cloud rolling into west Des Monies Iowa with 70MPH damaging wind gusts shown here illuminated via the west suburban city lights.

West Des Monies Iowa city light lit shelf cloud racing eastward into town! Would have been spectacular if taken in daylight!

Shot I captured of Sean Casey with his iconic (TIV) passing by us near Grafton Nebraska with a brief tornado touching down very near the town itself just to our west!