Day 10: June 5, 2014

Total Miles: 672  

Total Driving Time: 11 hours and 0 minutes

We were so close to seeing a tornado today! We began our day with a daily weather discussion at 9:00 am CDT. The forecast team decided that our target location would be in eastern Colorado. While heading west, a storm developed south of Denver around 1:00 pm MDT. The team decided that this would be the storm we would go after. We were not sure if we would make it to the storm because we were miles away. Luckily, this storm was slow moving so we were able to get ahead of the storm. We stopped in Hugo, CO for a quick break around 5:15 pm MDT to get gas and then head back on the road to see this supercell. We stopped near Wild Horse, CO (~5:45 pm MDT) to watch the wall cloud develop and see if this storm would produce a tornado. Around 6:00 pm MDT, a small funnel cloud was seen, but then retreated back into the wall cloud.

We decided to travel southwesterly to get closer to the supercell since the storm was moving slowly (around 25 mph). As we got closer, this storm developed an impressive beavers tail  and another wall cloud around 6:45 pm MDT. At 6:50 pm MDT, lots of dust was being picked up and the beaver's tail continued to lower. The lightning from this storm became prominent so we had to continue watching the storm in the vans. We followed the storm, even though it looked like the storm was weakening. At 7:45 pm MDT, a wall cloud and a few funnel clouds formed again, showing signs of strengthening. At 8:20 pm MDT, a scud bomb could be noticed from this supercell. We were all hopeful that this storm would produce a tornado, but it did not happen. We stayed on this storm until dark, got dinner in Lamar, CO, and then travelled over three hours to our hotel in Guymon, OK. We arrived at our hotel around 1:30 am CDT.