Day 4: McCook to Great Bend

 We started May 26 with high expectations, but predicting the weather requires a great deal of patience and acceptance of failure. Day 4 proved difficult and frustrating to say the least. At our breakfast brief, MAJ Hughes and Dr. Kalkstein pointed out that all the ingredients for a large storm outbreak were present near us in McCook: wind shear, instability, and some air mass contrast. We were optimistic that large thunderstorms and tornadoes would develop from Wyoming to Texas, but we couldn't decide where to go exactly, as the patterns were hard to read.

Eventually, after deliberating in the parking lot, Dr. Kalkstein decided that Western Kansas would be our target area. We all had different ideas of where to go (although we have no experience, so we just guessed), and nobody agreed with the SPC's zone. However, we found it ironic that we had driven to Nebraska the previous day only to return to Kansas immediately, but that's the nature of hunting weather. On the way south, an early cell built up near Colby, KS and we stopped to watch it. It wasn't especially powerful, but it had a beautiful structure, an anvil with mammatus clouds, and made for great photography. 


After a quick Subway stop for lunch, we found a park in Scott City where we thought storms would initiate later. We hung out for a few hours, threw a football, read books, and napped (at least Ethan and I did). But then Dr. Kalkstein noticed a storm firing up on the radar west of us, so it was go time. Soon we were on a dirt road, paralleling it and trying to get a good view. However, it was moving at around 45 mph, so it was hard to keep up. This storm never developed anything more severe than some lightning, and we followed it almost back up to Colby. 

Now that it was early evening, reports of larger storms North, East, and South of us were discouraging. Large tornadoes occurred in McCook, NE right where we were in the morning. Again, it seemed we couldn't predict the right spot to be, and we were unlucky yet again. However, we didn't lose all hope and headed eastward to position for the next day. We arrived in Great Bend, KS and had Applebee's for dinner. Dr. Kalkstein reflected on the annoying challenges of storm observation, and we all figured that days like this are inevitable. Although the day was a bust, and the SPC was more correct than we wanted to admit, the trip was still young. We went to bed anticipating another stormy day and ready to hit the road in the morning.

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