Day 2: Greeley, CO

Yesterday was as clear as mud. There was little in the way of obvious focused forcing and so storms could have gone up anywhere in a huge area. We ended up playing the cumulus field in the Nebraska panhandle until they didn't go any higher, at which time we took off to a decent-looking storm in northern Colorado. One that was moving toward the north. We figured, okay, it's moving north now so when it takes a right turn we'll be in business.

That didn't happen.

Another set of storms went up in a hurry to this storm's southeast, and they looked good both visually and on RADAR--from what we could see. We got somewhat close until the hail started. It came down as dimes and nickels and then got to slightly bigger than quarters. We hauled it out of there when the hail appeared it was going to get even bigger--no need to lose a windshield.

After we got away from that storm it decided to fizzle anyhow.

Farther west there were some storms going up that looked pretty good and wouldn't have their inflow polluted, so we took off in that direction and took a look. Meh.

After that we had had enough and went to the hotel in Greeley, CO.

On the way into Greeley we saw why the storms weren't behaving as expected: the hodograph from the 00Z Denver sounding was almost exactly the opposite of what you'd look for with a right-moving supercell. Well, that and the speeds weren't as good. So what we saw, storms moving north and the inflow on the north sides of the storms, was well-explained with that. Oh and no storm ever exhibited rotation, so all we got was a couple of multicell storms.

Yes, large hail from a multicell. In fact, there was a credible report of 2" (50 mm) hail from the storm we abandoned. Why would that be? Steep lapse rates. Even though storms weren't persisting, they were lasting long enough and were ingesting enough moisture to produce large, hard ice cubes.

Today looks very similar to today, and then things look to be on the upswing for a couple of days.