July 8, 2025 Severe Storm

Nebraska Panhandle near Alliance

The third day of Tour 10 featured a very large marginal risk area over much of the plains. A look at the convection-allowing models showed the most interesting storms might be in the Nebraska panhandle, so we drove westward from North Platte to Alliance and awaited storm development. We got on a storm west of Hemingford. In order to stay with it, I elected to take us on dirt roads between Hemingford and Alliance. We probably could have done just as well by staying on pavement and swinging wide around Alliance. By the time we navigated the dirt roads, amid a couple close calls with hail/core, we could have gotten around far to the east of the storm. Here are a few shots.

Storm Prediction Center 1630 UTC Day 1 convective outlook with verification.

We drove north into the Sandhills, then west to Alliance.

A storm develops near Hemingford, NE.

The storm drops southeastward, closer to us.

The storm is getting ahead a bit. We are still west of Hemingford.

Storm west of Alliance, once we were certain we were around it on the dirt roads.

Given that the next day's risk appeared to be primarily located in South Dakota, we drove northward to Chadron to spend the night. There, we ate dinner at an interesting Country Kitchen restaurant that was adjacent to our Best Western hotel. Chadron is one of my favorite places to stay.

Moonrise in Chadron, NE.

This is the route we took.

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