This is our most promising day so far. Scott’s choice to place us here at York, Nebraska puts us at the western tip of the high risk area, right along I-80; we are in a perfect starting location with the best available road options.
I will contain my excitement … NOT!
The morning SPC outlook maps looked like this:
CATEGORICAL OUTLOOK:
TORNADO OUTLOOK:
(http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/outlook/archive/2008/day1otlk_20080529_1300.html has the associated text)
TRAVEL SUMMARY:
- Took off westbound on I-80 from York, Nebraska
- Ended up in west/central Kansas, near Kearney and Aurora
- Wandered south of the interstate. Saw a nice wall cloud, but lost in in poor contrast as we wandered eastward on (mostly) unimproved roads. Rough driving, but I needed to polish my back roads driving skills anyhow.
- We wandered north on Highway 14, towards Aurora, only to discover a rain-wrapped tornado cut across the road less than 100 yards fro I-80. Ther ewere overturned semi trucks and trailers, power lines across the road, and high tension towers down. Scott’s analysis of what we saw: we narrowly missed a tornado there. (We later heard that I-80 was closed from Aurora to York, due to storm damage. If not for a 2-minute pit stop — my bladder was about to explode and was beginning to really hurt! — we might have been unwilling participants in the event.)
- We basically saw nothing else storm-wise, though the damage at both Kearney (seen on The Weather Channel) and Aurora was consistent with EF1/EF2 damage (not that we did a full engineering survey).
| START TIME | START ODOM. | START LOC. |
|---|---|---|
| 10:06 | 6657 | York, NE |
| FINISH TIME | FINISH ODOM. | FINISH LOC. |
| 22:47 | no est. | Abilene, KS |
| ELAP. TIME | MILES TTL. | REMARKS |
| 12:41 | no est. | (TBA) |