Storm Chasing - Tour 5 Day Six - The Wandering Author

4 June 2022

Liberal, KS to Goodland, KS

691 km

I managed almost six hours of sleep and went for a walk with my walking buddies to visit Dorothy’s House nearby. I picked up some lozenges at a gas station as my allergies seemed to be flaring up, likely from the dust in New Mexico.

We had our briefing at ten and there were potential targets in the northeastern Colorado, southwestern Nebraska, northwestern Kansas area.

Before we headed out, we went to Dorothy’s house again. This time we got our pic taken with Dorothy.

We asked a stranger to take the pic with my cell phone.

Heh.

After a lunch stop, we headed towards Nebraska and waited for a while in Alwood, Kansas to see what the systems were going to do.

We took the opportunity to get a group pic from a drone.

Pollen the size of golf balls was floating around the park.

No wonder I was congested.

We drove into Nebraska and through McCook, making our first stop near Curtis and then proceeded south and made a number of stops to watch as the three storms behind us started to join up. At one stop, there was a light rain, and by looking up, we could see the individual drops of rain falling towards us. Some were able to catch a drop in their mouth.

Luckily, none of it was hail. That could leave a mark.

It was producing quite a bit of lightning and we went west near Selton, crossing under the storm.

There were reports of a possible tornado to the north of us and we drove through some hail and high winds complete with debris, mostly tree branches, on the road.

Near Oberlin, there was a report of a tornado directly ahead. We didn’t see either, but drove west to get out from under the storm.

Near Colby, we pulled over to watch the lightning. I didn’t think I’d have enough time to set up my tripod, but we were there for about a half hour. I took a few handheld shots.