Our First "Official" Chase - Day 1

And...we're off!  Our storm chasing vacation has begun.  We had a minor delay in getting started, but one that we were happy to have.  Our second grandson made his appearance on Friday!  We spent the day with our kids and enjoyed both the boys.  Cuddling with a newborn is just the best!  And running with a 2 year old is such fun, even if it is exhausting.

So, for our first chase experience we were limited in how far we could go, but thought we would try anyway.  We decided to make a drive toward the Kansas/Nebraska state line, north of Salina KS, where it was predicted that some storms could fire in the late afternoon.  

While monitoring the radar and watching the sky, we made adjustments to our location as the afternoon progressed.  And by luck (I would say) we ended up in place to watch a tornado warned storm that popped up just south of the KS/NE state line and traveled ENE near Chester, NE.  It never produced a tornado but it was fun to watch.  It was great practice for trying to stay ahead of a storm, moving along with it, but still being able to see the structure.  We were able to capture several pictures of the storm structure, along with a wall cloud.

The storm dissipated after about an hour, and our chase ended.  In spite of not seeing a tornado I would consider this a successful chase.  I was able to get us close to a storm, follow it, get some pics, and have some fun!  At that point we headed back to stay with our kids for the night, but made plans for day 2 of our trip.  We'll have to wait and see where that leads us.