I don't mind a good snow storm, and since eastern NE didn't seem to ever want to have one this year I decided to head west and chase this one. I missed some good ice shots by not chasing the one the week before. My plan was to find the best area for snow(forecasted 18+ in a large area) and then just shoot the ice storm on the way back home. I left at 7:30 a.m. on the 29th, noting the temps out west were cooler than they were supposed to be. Cold air really doesn't care to move and I was starting to think there could be a decent area of ice with this storm. The warm overruning was not in question, all that was needed was colder surface temps, and they were in place. Actually the night before you could see a decent push/front in western SD and WY. That moved southeast and never budged. But anyway, I hoped I'd beat this nasty area of precip moving north in nw KS. Well that didn't move all day, basically.
I would get occasional rain as I got closer to sw NE. I kept using the temperture gauge I had with to see how cold the air was. I think it was 37 in Aurora and then down to 33.5 near Kearney. Feeling that freezing line would not want to move much, since it had a decent push from the nw behind it and that air was fairly cold(upper 20s), I planned to stop as soon as my precip changed to snow. That location would be my target for snow. Before I got to Lexington I noticed they were reporting snow. When I got there I found little snow and I was still just above freezing. I opted to move just a bit further west. Just before this, I noticed I was passing people like they were standing still. The roads were only wet here but I thought maybe they were all just being very careful. Well then a bit later I see the speedometer says I'm doing 55. I look out the window and am thinking, this doesn't seem like 55. Once it started to say 35 I was sure the speedometer was failing. Pretty soon I was "doing" 0 mph. Doh! Then the truck started to vibrate a lot. This all happens as I leave Lexington. I pull over on some road before Cozad and get onto highway 30. Right here the speedometer came back and the vibrating went away. Turns out I80 just sucks right there and the wheels were about to fall off.
At this same time it starts to sleet hard and the road is quickly very slick. Not wanting to drive on this any longer I stop in Cozad and get a room. That was another fear, not finding a room before everyone else.
The first image here is at Cozad, not long after I got there and was in the sleet. Large flakes now falling, and lots of them. I was like, hey, this works. I wind up in about the best spot I could for snow in the area. The rain to freezing rain to sleet to snow line was very tight here. Early there wasn't much freezing rain at all, it just went right to sleet. This would change at least a little bit later in the evening.
I was glad I had my room now, as I80 was quickly becoming a mess.
Well the first night there was pretty uneventful. One cool thing was the fact I was on the very west edge of a decent n-s band moving north. This provided about 5-6 inches. It was really a rather skinny band, I was lucky to be in it. I think it went to sleet and some freezing rain pretty quickly just to the east too. Northwest KS took the brunt this day I'd have to say.
