What an interesting early start to the chase season. I knew that the weather was going to get good out on the plains, but due to Hunter being sick didn’t think I was going to go out. After talking with Hunter and getting him to the doctor with meds, we needed to stay low profile so we decided for Hunter to watch movies all day…what is the difference between watching them in bed or in the back seat? So we decided to chase.

We picked up the storm in Castle Rock and while heading east on Hwy 86 the cell was tornado warned. To get in front of it we raced north on Hwy 83 (Parker Road) and finally started getting hit by hail near Parker. The traffic was really slow so I took a detour off of Hilltop and headed east.

Looking east as we got out in front of the storm we saw some serious inflow with lots of swirling going on.  I got a call from Scott Bennett, a chaser I met last year during the June 15th storm in Elbert County, who happened to be watching under this inflow at the end of Singing Hills, so we met up and chased the storm through the deep hail.  Scott ended up heading back to work at Strausburg.

Near Dear Trail I heard of the cell having a confirmed tornado, but I only saw some swirls in the clouds at that time.  We needed to get in front of the storm moving basically N-NE and so we took 71 north out of Last Chance to Woodrow and then west on CR 29.  Here we saw the storm just after it swallowed another cell and went linear.

Here are a couple other views of the storm west of Woodrow before calling it a day.  What a great EARLY start to the Colorado chase season!  We ended up getting 20″+ of snow the next morning, then another 12″+ the next night, and about 3″ the following night!  Spring is finally here!

Hunter had a great time and did a lot of the computer work for me with the radar!  Nice to have the help!

And with most early spring strong low pressure systems, we have a surprise the next day!