41 Near Limon CO 2 June 2005

Date: 2 June 2005

Location: Eastern CO

Chaser Partner : Joe Spencer and Fred the F5

Summary: Hung out in Bennett for most of the early afternoon. Met up with Brad Carter at the Conoco station just off of I-70 and swapped chase stories. Storms started firing E of Bennett near the Denver Metro. Headed back W toward Manila Rd and watched storm develop. Headed N out of Bennett toward near DIA and storm went HP. Didn't really look very promising. Decided to head N on Hwy 79 toward Prospect Valley when the same storm went Tornado Warning. Started looking for E road options and the only way to make an attempt was to take the back roads. Well, I have been chasing on the back roads on numerous chases and have never really had bad luck. Until this day!! Joe was driving and I was navigating and I decided to take a road near Commanche, CO. The HP storm basically turned the roads into a mud skating rink. Mike Bay, who we met in Bennett as well was following along until his car couldn't take the roads any longer. We pressed on and eventually crapped out between 2 flood plains. We came over a hill and there it was right in front of us. A raging river about 80 feet across and who knows how deep. We were going down hill and weren't slowing down. Every time Joe would pump the brake we got closer and closer to the side of the road, which led into a freshly plowed field. I finally told Joe to drop it in reverse and FLOOR IT!! I used to horse ass around in my moms car in the snow when I was a kid and knew that if it was slick enough, a reverse drop wouldn't kill the tranny and you could do some amazing maneuvering. So Joe not thinking I was serious questioned me and I said hell yeah, drop in reverse and floor it!! So he did. And how bad was it that neither of us had our cameras rolling cause when he floored it, there was mud falling from the sky in clumps!! In hind sight it was hilarious. We finally stopped about 60' from the flood.........and off the road in the field........buried nearly up to the axles in mud. Whoa boy. Now what the hell are we going to do. I mean, we are in the middle of NO WHERE!! We don't even have cell signal to call for help. My ham radio isn't picking up NWS Boulder any longer. SO........I decide to get out. And step into mud almost up to my knee caps. Then I check out the river staring us in the face and wade out into it. I highly doubt that we would have made it had we kept going. Long story short, I took about a ton of hay that washed up on the sides of the river and put enough of it in the field behind the truck and under it to get just enough traction to get it out. All the while hearing reports of tornados and warnings from the NOAA radio and going nuts cause we were stuck. After a 3 hour hiatus from the chase, we were back hot on the trail and made our way to Limon where a giant cell went tornado warning in Elbert County. We made the intercept although it was dark, got some great time exposures of the storm. Didn't see any tornado or wall cloud for that matter. Finally made it to Garden City, KS to set up for the next days chase.

And this was after a couple of rain bands went thru and washed some of the mud off.

Elbert County storm near Rush.

Time exposure shots east of Kit Carson, CO.