Colorado Chase May 17, 2011

I vowed this year to chase every day I had off in which there was even a remote chance for a tornado. Well, it was pretty remote today; I thought SPC's 2% threat was overkill, but amazingly a couple tornado warned storms materialized by late afternoon. Unfortunately I stayed too far south early on and by the time I realized the southern cells werent going to produce, it was a it late to catch the warned ones to the north, and missed a tornado that was apparently on the ground for 5 minutes according to the Storm Report. So, my tornado drought continues, but no regrets since the storms were magnificent tonight. Very electric and an enormous amount of hail--my chase ended when I ran into drifts of hail a foot deep on Interstate 70--had to wait for snow plows to clear the highway--it was nuts! Here's a few highlites, mostly at sunset when the storms were spectacular.