Late May Storm - what's what with davealex

There have been several great stormy days here in Colorado in early May; but my schedule has prevented me from chasing on those good days. I’ve been itching to get out; and luckily we had a good day before we left for our family vacation!

My son and I got an opportunity to head out on May 26th. We targeted Limon and decided we’d then go where the storms popped up as the forecast was difficult. The storms fired along the Colorado front range early in the day; and put down some hail, but those storms were moving due north and had already formed a line; so we punched through and continued to our target. Once in Limon, we saw some development to the south and headed that way to check them out.

The weather was strange, it was pretty chilly (about 52 degrees) and nothing was going up discreet. We stopped at the first storm and noted a wall cloud feature on a storm, so we watched it. It did have a little rotation; but just as it was looking good the inflow got cut off and the storm turned into a massive rainy mess. So we left it and headed Southeast towards the front end of the cells.

Early wall cloud, temp was about 50 degrees. — Early wall cloud, temp was about 51 degrees.

A small amount of rotation. — A small amount of rotation as this wall cloud continued

We were able to see a small, short lived funnel near Wild Horse and as we were heading south towards some great looking structure near Kit Carson the storm overtook us. There was a tornado spotted from this cell but traffic was pretty hairy and we ended up abandoning that storm and heading north. We saw some great lightning, Hunter actually saw a positive bolt from the top of a tower which is great; I’ve never seen one of those. By the time we got north of I-70, the front edge of the storms were all out by the Kansas border, and we decided to not pursue those into Kansas and instead just watch the remaining daytime lightning south of Yuma and then head home.

A funnel was forming; I rushed back to the car to ensure Hunter could see it; but by then it had dissipated. It went about 1/2 way to the ground, but was just a small finger. — Here a funnel was forming, but I didn’t get a shot of it as it was 1/2 way to the ground as I was rushing back to the car to ensure Hunter saw it! It lasted for just a minute or two; but the coulds were all active in this area.

tn_Storm_May26-08177 — Interesting structure as the storm overtook us

Aroya historic school house! — The Aroya historic school house was in use until the early 1960s.

tn_Storm_May26-8006 — The greens are beautiful this time of year!

South of Yuma we caught up to the last lightning of the evening. We parked next to a grain bin and under these power lines; ended up getting some great day lightning photos; I was holding the camera by hand and was surprised this technique actually worked as it wasn’t dark yet!