2010-04-13 Report

This day the SPC had a slight risk from Canada down to the OK panhandle crossing the far eastern plains of Colorado. The dynamics for severe weather were certainly in place and had the dewpoints been higher in the upper 50 range vs the upper 40s that we actually had - this day might have been a big tornado day.

I headed up I-76 late afternoon and caught the tail-end of the line forming near Chappell, NE were I caught a couple of brief but intense gustnadoes on the leading edge of the line. I also drove through a pretty good barrage of penny-sized hail.

A couple of cells formed ahead of the line and were tornado warned near Ogallala, NE but these were absorbed by the line before they could really produce a long lived meso.

I shot south to Grant and then to Holyoke and then south on 385 to Wray were I pierced the line back to the east and got ahead of it again at Goodland, KS. As I was blasting west again to another tornado warned segment of the line a tornado was reported. I could not confirm it and looking around on the internet this morning I don't see any real evidence that these tornadoes weren't more than the gustnadoes or perhaps brief landspout I'd seen all day.