Afton, Wyoming

Still no time... here is another shot from one of the storms in Nebraska.

So far 54 tornadoes have been reported from today's storm, with Mississippi and Alabama getting the brunt of the storm, as was expected.  Wasn't planning on chasing today (if I was, my plan was to stay at the SE-corner of Missouri last night, and then to follow the storms across the south-central U.S. in the morning).

As I figured I was too late to track any of the real activity, I decided to half-explore / half-track the one storm I thought had potential.  I ended up starting in eastern Oklahoma and tracking the storm across Rogers, Arkansas and up through Table Rock Lake to Springfield, Missouri.  While I was surrounded by some very intimidating clouds (below picture was the standard view of the day), I managed today to stay out of the hail and 70+ mph winds this storm recording through careful GPS navigation on my Doppler display.

Near Springfield, MO

While there was a clear wall cloud that I tracked for miles, I never positively saw anything touchdown (despite a lot of semi-funnels that were sticking-out).  According to the National Weather Service though, a F0 did in fact touchdown 5-miles east of me at the exact time I was driving through (18:40) and was recorded with 80 mph winds.  I swear I saw a clear funnel at this point while looking over the lake, but it was only two quick looks I got and I shrugged it off as my mind playing tricks on me.  I guess I'll never know.

 After leaving Springfield, heading east to intercept storm brewing in southeast

Another 11 hour day and 600 mile drive.

Oh, Arkansas

Long day.  Chased storms through Nebraska (primarily around Lincoln, Omaha, and Fremont), and then back across eastern Kansas/western Missouri.  Hit with hail several times, largest being about the size of a nickel or quarter, and my car didn't seem to enjoy it.  Chased in a lot of tornado watches/warnings, but no sightings despite very strong activity at times (so much activity that it was very challenging to shoot.

Best part of the day was around Rock Port, MO where I was almost completely surrounded by thunder-storms, but with a clear view of the stars directly above me:

After meeting up with and following a crew of about 8-storm chasers, I have verified first-hand that (a) these guys are friggn' nuts, (b) they have no idea where they are going judging by the amount of u-turns they pull and (c) they drive like maniacs.  Below is one of the vehicles from the Discovery Channel show "Storm Chasers."  Also followed the storm chasing crew that provides coverage for The Weather Channel.  My respect for that has substantially decreased after I found him at the back of the pack following every other storm chaser's ideas.

At times the sky was gaining some pretty interesting colors.  Below is as-shot with slight increase in saturation, but no addition of color:

10 hours of chasing / 600 miles today.   That makes for 3,000 miles in the past week (the equivalent of driving from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco...and then a couple hundred miles more)

NOTE: Check back later for an update to this post (more pictures/stories).  Sorry, but I'm tired.

Chased my first storm since coming out to the mid-west. Unfortunately, the most I experienced was some strong winds, rain, and a little bit of lightning.  Followed the storm across NE Kansas through St. Joseph, Missouri before giving up.  Below shot was from my one-hour trip on back-roads, weaving between farmland, occasionally passing a tractor or two:

When I got passed by a retro-fitted Jeep with a WWII-style machine gun rack sticking up from the passenger side and a 10-year old boy sitting behind the wheel with his mom in the passenger seat, I finally decided it was time to stick to the main roads.  I can't apologize enough for not getting a picture of them, but frankly, I was pretty horrified at the time and didn't want to be too obvious about my efforts to photograph them.  Sadly, the best I managed was a picture of their garage, which openly displayed to me the reason why (a) I got lost so many times and (b) why I almost got into so many accidents:

The entire garage was lined with these signs

Rolling In