6/10/2007 Severe Convection along the South Dakota-Nebraska Border

I picked my brother up at the Denver airport around 11 AM with a target for later that day near Valentine, NE. I was not expecting too much on this day because shear was rather minimal. As we neared our target of Valentine, convection was developing off to the west. We got into a bit of small hail long US-83 just into South Dakota as these high-based storms moved into the instability axis and got their act together. We rerouted around the storm and headed to north to Mission, east to Winner, and then southward on 183 near Springview, NE. This ended up being a great decision as we were treated with a beautiful (nonsupercellular) structure show east on sr-12 near Burton, NE. We stayed ahead of the “severe-warned” storm for nearly two hours and simply marveled at the cloud structures it was producing. It was a real treat for the eyes. This proves that you do not have to have a big, mean supercell producing a tornado to have a satisfying chase. We ended the night at the Holiday Inn Express in Winner, SD. Overall, considering the weak shear aloft, I was very happy with today’s results.