Here is one of those great parts of the Great Plains: wide-open views, very nearly flat, and devoid of trees. Many folks see this as boring, or flyover country. Spread a supercell across its sky, however, and no grander place exists on God’s green Earth than assorted patches of high plateau from west Texas to northern Montana. Each spring, yearning renews as strong as ever for the beauty and power of rotating storms out here on the American prairie, and not just in their visual form, but experienced through other senses—sounds of thunder, meadowlarks and the rushing inflow winds, the moist aroma and silky feel of those same breezes, and an important sense of humbling smallness in the face of energy rivaling a nuclear warhead. This was the second of three supercells I intercepted in eastern Colorado on this day—each larger, longer-lasting and more marvelously structured than the previous. The wall cloud at lower center centered itself nicely between a broad, flanking updraft base at left and the tail cloud and vault regions at right, and even rotated modestly; however, no tornado formed, and the storm soon shrank and weakened.
8 N Kit Carson CO (14 May 21) Looking NW
38.8804, -102.7997