06-19-11 Storm Chase

 This day I wanted to go chasing earlier in the day but again I didn't get out of town till later around 5.There were storms in KS and SW NE. Once I got down by Wymore I wasn't sure which way I wanted to go..so I opted to head to western NE hoping the storms would speed up heading east and meet me. The storms were slow moving and it was going to take a few more hours to get to my location and the sun was already starting to go down. I got to Fairbury and gased up and ate and was ready to start charging my laptop...but soon relized I forgot to grab the bag from my house that had the cord in it and I only had about 20 minutes left of power for the laptop. I gave up at that point without having radar and the time it was going to get to any storms I headed home disappointed.. I was just about to Beatrice when I seen storms to the north start going up south of Lincoln and checked the radar with what little power I had left and seen there was some significant storms brewing. I drove through Beatrice and back towards Lincoln and noticed the storms were going straight eastwards towards Iowa and not going any farther north than Lincoln at the time. So I turned off at the road that goes to Firth Ne and headed east and found a place to take some photos..once the storms rolled by I drove home and when I got home I grabed my cord and plugged in my laptop and checked one more time before I took everything in to see if there was any more storms worth chasing..I seen some to the north and could see the lightning so off I went again north towards Wahoo NE. It was about 3 when I got done in that area and was going to head home when I got to hwy 77 back to Lincoln South..On the radar there was a tornado warned storm to the west by David City..so I took the chance and said what the hell and headed for David City. I got about 10 miles from David City and it was then I noticed on the radar that the storm was hooking and the velocities were just right for a tornado. I had seen storms do this when there producing a tornado on the radar before and it kinda had me worried since the hwy that was taking me to the storm was in direct line with where the bottom of the storm was hooking..It's tough enough to chase a tornado in the daylight and I don't generally chase at night I thought I had a chance to make it to the turn off that heads south to Seward Ne but I wasn't gonna chance it..I couldn't see anything and the lightning strikes weren't showing me to much structure of the storm..So I made a U turn and headed away from the storm a ways till it went back to severe warned and there wasn't a chance of a tornado. It was a little scary to say being new to chasing..but I knew I wasn't in a good situation and knew to back off for safety reasons. I should of done a screen grab of that hook but I was more worried about getting out of there. Here is my route for the night and some photos I took as well.