Bust...

Day 8 - 4th June

Today's target is south east South Dakota/north east Nebraska. Storms may initiate in Missouri but due to the chase unfriendly topography we won't be going there.

There is ample moisture and if storms do initiate they will appear in the evening. Supercells are possible and isolated tornadoes are also possible (2% chance) with an overall slight risk.

We drive south on the 81 over the Missouri river and stop in Columbus, Nebraska at Runza for a bacon cheese burger, which to be honest wasn't bad and goes to no. 1 in the burger hit parade.

I had a milk chocolate Hershey Bar and soon regret it. My memories of it tasting like sick prove to be correct, but feel free to disagree! We continue south on the 30 through Grand Island onto the I80 west.

We end up back in Elm Creek and wait around for a while deciding what to do. As predicted storms fire up in Kansas City Missouri but we won't be chasing them. We speculatively head west on the I80 towards North Platte (Liam's second home) hoping for something to break the CAP, a warm inverted layer set on top of cold air. If the CAP breaks, storms will be explosive. If it doesn't the day will end in a bust - we'll give it to 19:30 for something to happen.

We head north on the 83 and the temperature is 91f. We keep going on the 97 and although a few clouds bubble up there is no lift (no wind) and the CAP proves unmovable. That's storm chasing, you have to take the rough with the smooth. We do an about turn back to North Platte and I have a brisket sandwich at a BBQ place which is ok. We source some beer (Dark Side Vanilla Porter brewed in Lincoln Nebraska) which is pretty good and Mark, Liam and Dawn and I retire to my room to fight over this laptop and internet connection.

Total mile TBC

No photos worthy of uploading