19 June 2019
“It’s a tornado machine!”
Hugoton, KS to Scottsbluff, NE (1031 km)
I slept till eight. I couldn’t believe it.
We got together for our briefing and Bill originally wanted to target an area east towards Kansas, but by the time we loaded up the vans, he decided to make a run for Nebraska.
So, we finally headed north into the high plains. We had Arby’s in Goodland, which was kinda good luck for the day given that we had Arby’s right before we saw the Prospect Valley tornado one year before. We also seem to get tornadoes on the days that I clean out the van.
After lunch, we turned west into Colorado and gained an hour and then headed north towards Scottsbluff, Nebraska. It was a long drive and Bill said later he was waffling but decided to go into Wyoming to look at a system that had developed near Wright, WY and was moving east.
We intercepted it near Lusk, hearing that it had already dropped a tornado. We thought we’d lost out.
We pulled up on top of a rise and watched the system come towards us.
And behind us, the shadow was casting some nice anti-crepuscular rays.
And as the sun went down, it started dropping tornadoes from the wall cloud.
Some were likely lost in the rain but there were a couple that were visible.
As it got dark, it crossed the highway, still dropping tornadoes. The one to the left definitely had rotation.
We stayed where we were and watched the storm move off to the east with rotation markers still popping up on the radar. It was a tornado machine.
We drove to Scottsbluff for the night and could only find rooms at the Monument Inn.
At first thought, one would think it’d be a basic small town motel.
Nope. That beauty would have no problem competing with the Quality Inn or Holiday Inn Express. Real plates, bowls and cutlery at breakfast. Glass cups in the room. A lot of little things in a pristine room.
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See also: Bill Reid’s entry for 19 June