6/14/2013 Dodge, NE Supercell

Walker and I targeted the area between Norfolk and Columbus, NE on this slight risk day. This region had strong surface convergence, moderate instability, and sufficient shear for supercells. The only concern was the strong capping inversion, which had us waiting in the Humphrey, NE park for a lengthy part of the afternoon. As strato-cumulus clouds took over, we became increasingly concerned about (the potential lack of) storms firing in our target region. We actually began to bail south toward less organized storms and, not even 10 minutes later, the first radar echo appeared northeast of Humphrey. We returned north and intercepted the slowly maturing storm near SR-91 and SR-15. The storm slowly matured into a majestic stack of plates supercell with numerous cloud-to-ground lightning strikes. The slow moving storm provided eye candy for a good hour or so, before convection to the south interacted with it, causing it to become increasingly disorganized. We punched west and then southwest toward Grand Island, stopping to take in a bit of lightning after sunset near Central City, NE. The night ended at a Fairfield Inn in Grand Island, NE (text modified from Walker Ashley).

Beautiful stack-of-plates supercell structure

Time lapse of the supercell