Well, this year's chase trip is in the books - or blog as it may be - and our lives will now resume their normal flow. The car has been dropped off, 8600 driven miles was the finally tally, and I am home relaxing before I sleep for the rest of the day. This trip was definitely one that stands out over the past 4 years I have been chasing. As a team, I think we have come a long way in our forecasting and planning; most every target location was correct, the storms we intercepted were consistently the best of the day, and when something did happen we were ready. The tornado we saw in southeast Colorado will be hard to top in this lifetime, and I can honestly say that it was the most awesome event I have ever watched. Coupled with a couple of the beautifully structured cells we witnessed, this year was an undeniable success.

I would like to thank Chris and Neil and Greg again for lending their meteorological knowledge and expertise, Nate for letting us crash at his place in Kansas City at the end of the trip, and to all of the people who have followed the blog and seemed truly interested in our endeavors.

Until next year...

Neil and I are on our way back to the DC area now. ETA for home is about 8:30am tomorrow. Looks like clear skies most of the way, so that's a plus.

Back in Kansas City, the trip is done for this year. Short story, we ended up not seeing any storms the past couple days except for late linear and marginal convection. We chased around a little but there wasn't much to see. Tomorrow Neil and I start the drive back to NoVA / Maryland area.

Another day, another coffee shop. Waiting in Hastings, Nebraska, for things to fire off. Our best bet is if something can develop out here near central and western Nebraska / Kansas state line and move a little east into the lower LCL's. Thea shear and CAPE are decent out here so we are definitely going to get a nice super-cell. IF something develops.

UPDATE: In Hiawatha, Kansas, now. Ended up driving almost to Kansas City, and then turned back west some. Tornado warned cells to our east on into Missouri, but horrible chase territory out there. Still a crap-shoot.

Today did not, in fact, live up to it's potential. We got a couple early discreet cells, but they never really amounted to much and even as tornado warned cells they were mostly just a disorganized line segment that looked like a gust front.

The bright note of today was supper. Went to the Blarney Stone restaurant in O'Neill, Nebraska, and it was by far the best food we have eaten on this trip. Too bad we didn't have time to sit and enjoy a couple pints of Guinness.

Headed now to Grand Island, Nebraska, for the night; chase target looks to be central and north Kansas tomorrow.

Long night and day of driving, but we are camped out now in Ainsworth, Nebraska, waiting for initiation. Looks like we will be heading north towards Winner, South Dakota, eventually but we don't want to get too far north just yet. Also, it looks like SPC is about to issue a watch for our area, so hopefully today will get exciting.

Nearly 900 miles and 34 hours later, we've returned to Kearney, NE by way of Boise City, OK...I'm getting too old for this.

Hoping for supercells near the dryline/warm front intersection in southern South Dakota tomorrow, initial target is Winner, SD.

Goodnight.