So that ‘marginal’, 2% chance of tornado risk I was talking about yesterday turned into a group of cells that dropped down 10 tornadoes over central Texas, sadly resulting in the death of at least 6 people. It’s a real wake-up call, and goes to show just how much unpredictability there is in storm forecasting, even only 12 hours ahead of a potential severe weather outbreak.
Its a world away from our experience. Beautiful sunny skies and rolling hills as we head West from Chadron towards Valentine, Nebraska. I’m actually pretty glad we didn’t try to chase Texas yesterday. We we nowhere near ready, and to be thrust into storm systems that dropped a mile-wilde EF4 tornado could have been a baptism of fire way beyond what I would have been expecting.
Today we are chasing a very marginal setup in north-central Nebraska/South Dakota that looks unlikely to drop any substantial tornadoes but there is a small chance we could see some organised cells or weak Supercell storms. We’re really killing two birds with one stone, chasing a marginal setup while also getting into better position further east for the weekend.