Possible chase today - The SPC has placed a Slight Risk on a good chunk of SE CO with a 2% Tornado Risk along a line from roughly Wray to Limon to Pueblo to New Mexico extending into KS, NM & OK.  There is also a 5% Tornado Risk roughly from a Kit Carson to Pumpkin Center to Rocky Ford line then East.  A Low and associated cold front will move SE today and stall along a line from Kit Carson CO to Benkelman NE.  Two surges will also move east today through the risk area, one in the morning and one in the afternoon with mid level wind shear in the 40kt range.  Temperatures are forecated to be in the upper 70's and low 80's today in SE CO; the GFC also shows dew points sitting around 50 by 1700hrs MDT.  All of these factors combined with a day off work and nearly June lead me to want to chase today.  SPC should update at around 0600 MDT and I'll update from there.

Danni and I left home at noon and headed south toward Franktown.  Once we were there BOU issued the Tornado Watch, a lot of new towers were rapidly going up along the foothills and we headed east to Elizabeth.  One or two storm bases looked to be getting organized in SE Douglas County over the Cherry Valley and we continued east to Kiowa and stopped to use the internet.

Once in Kiowa we could see the updated outlook from SPC, the tornado risk had been pushed a lot farther north than I expected. 

This was the current MCD at the time.  The temperature in Kiowa was a bit warmer than Elizabeth so my hope was that Limon and points East would be even better.  Organization was still taking place in Western Elbert County so we cruised East to Road 117 & Highway 86 to observe conditons for a bit and review road options.

Danni Chillin

Sitting on Elbert County Road 117 checking road options, the storm behind me was going Tornado Warned right about now.

We shot back West toward Kiowa to intercept the storm and get a better view of anything on the ground.  A few miles outside of Kiowa we ran into some other chasers and some precip but nothing overly severe looking.  We moved East to Road 125; Road 125 has provided several of our best chases and this storm would be no exception.  5 miles North of Simla we ran into a slug of chasers; Roger Hill with Silver Lining Tours, the Carlson's & Tony Laubach to name a few.  We all got a great view of an increadable storm base (nearly on the ground) and a huge shelf cloud.

The storm was roughly 7 miles NW of Simla, the SPC Storm Reports list a public reported tornado on the ground at the time this photo was taken.  No chasers that I'm aware of witnessed a tornado and no damage was reported if one did touch down.

One last shot before we headed to Highway 24 and shot East.  We stopped on 24 near Matheson and chatted with some chasers, the outflow winds were very cold at this point.  We continued into Limon where several motorists were stopped under over passes, Limon was Tornado Warned as we went through town.  We continued East to Genoa and exited to take photos of the massive shelf cloud.