We woke up to a breezy, dry, chilly day in Oakley, KS. We were way behind the dryline. SPC had a moderate risk for most of South Dakota, and we targeted Vermilion, about the only town we could get to reasonably. It is in the southeast corner of SD. We promptly left KS and headed this direction.
We drove up US-83 to US-34, stopping in Hastings. Here, we talked to Bobby to see where he was positioning. Bobby wasn't going farther north than Grand Island. He had WXWorx and saw a ton of other chasers, so we were flying somewhat blind, only going on SPC's morning synopsis. We headed northeast on US-30 and then north on US-81 towards the SD/NE border. After a while, we began to see some storms forming from the cumulus field we were driving through.
We grabbed a quick dinner at Wendy's near Norfolk, and then continued up to Cedar County. Storms were beginning to fire and become severe warned. We fueled up and headed into Knox County, NE and had a brief intercept with a severe-warned cell.
Despite being warned, this storm was beginning to fizzle out. We opted to cross the Missouri River and get into SD, rather than get stuck on the bridge during the gusts and small hail as it gasped its last breath. Once we reached the SD side, we took some photos of the Meridian Bridge. This double-decker, single lane lifted bridge was built in 1924, and is now being converted for use for pedestrian traffic.
After the sun went down, we sought food and a hotel, and ended up spending the night in Vermilion, SD.