June 10, 2002 - Ayr, NE - Tornado



Chase Account by: Jonathan Garner
 
Brian Thalken, Jason Ehmke and I observed a beautiful supercell today, as well as two brief, weak spin-ups. We left Lincoln, NE at 3 pm with a target near Grand Island, NE. After waiting an hour or so near Grand Island, two large towers erupted to our southwest at 5:50 pm. We made our way south down highway 281, and positioned ourselves directly to the east of the northern most tower near Ayr, NE. The northern storm slowly matured, developing a nice anvil, but its updraft was having a hard time strengthening. Meanwhile, a cell to our south contained explosive convection on its rear flank, but it was behaving like a multicell storm. So we stayed put, and monitored both storms as they slowly drifted east/northeast.
 
By 7:50 pm, the northern storm (now near Hastings, NE) was becoming more organized, and featured a bowl shaped rain-free base. The southern storm was still a strong multicell, so we headed east in between both storms on highway 74. At 8 pm, we decided to stop on a county road to take pictures (near Glenvil, NE), when all of a sudden a tight funnel dropped out of the northern storm, extending about 1/4-th of the way to the ground...then, 30-seconds later, the Hastings NWS issued a tornado warning for the cell. This cell was now taking on classical supercellular features. The anvil was amazing, strong inflow was present at cloud base, the updraft was very strong, and the rain-free base was widening. We blew off the southern storm and went north down several county roads, and by 8:10-8:15 pm, we finally caught up to the updraft base and parked 2 miles northeast of Inland, NE. The mid-level mesocyclone was very strong and quite obvious. In addition, a clear slot could be observed wrapping around the base of the storm. 
 
At 8:23, a weak vortex was observed. It was an almost translucent tube of rotating dust extending up to a small area of rotation at cloud base. This weak spin-up occurred at the point were the clear slot was "slicing" into the base of the updraft. We then repositioned ourselves, and observed a second, more defined circulation at around 8:30-8:35 pm. This second vortex was a dusty bowl, and again, appeared to be associated with the clear slot. By 8:40 pm, we stopped again, and watched a second mid-level mesocyclone develop along the flanking line of the first supercell (Clay County, NE). This second mesocyclone was very vigorous and the color of the updraft turned gold as the sun-set. In addition, the storm was strong enough to create 30+ mph inflow winds. We ended the chase at 9:20 pm watching a beautiful display of lightning.