June 17, 2011 Kit Carson County Supercell

June 17, 2011February 18, 2017 by davealex

Today was a fun chase. Started off on a cell from Parker to Agate, then a brief stay with a cell over Limon, but decided on tail-end Charlie and hit up the storm near Rush. It became TVS warned as I was intercepting and it looked great! Followed this cell all the way to Cheyenne Wells where it started to tap into the moister air and had to fly south to beat the building core. Great lightning that evening around Hugo too!

Nice looking lowering

lowering south of Limon — Just south of Limon on Hwy 24, interesting lowering

Storm as it passed over Limon — Storm as it passed over Limon, you can see the hail “color” in the clouds

Tail-end Charlie; need to catch the southern storm!

Tornado warned southern storm — As I got closer to the Southern storm; it went Tornado warned at this time

Directly east of the southern storm

Southern supercell building — Southern supercell building and coming right at me

Radar of the southern supercell

Southern supercell getting close — Just about ready to head South and then East

Gustnado - Kit Carson County — This was reported as a tornado, I call it a gustnado and would not have reported it

Supercell starting to form a shelf cloud

Supercell core with lightning — About 2 minutes away from big hail, I took these lightning shots in the core

Supercell core with Lightning — About 2 minutes away from big hail, I took these lightning shots in the core

Interesting clouds — Interesting feature on the cell northeast of me; this looked like a small tornado before this, but it was too far away to confirm.

Awesome shelf cloud

Awesome shelf cloud

smoke from burning oil well — Smoke from a burning oil well

Then the storm got dirty!

Shelf clouds — Shelf cloud from the second storm as it was shaping into a MCS, time to bail