KEVIN MYATT The Roanoke Times

A supercell thunderstorm spins and dumps rain near Flagler, Colo., on Wednesday. A group of storm chasers is preparing for what could be several days of severe storms in Kansas and Nebraska.

Kevin Myatt is The Roanoke Times' weather columnist.

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WAKEENEY, Kan. -- Severe thunderstorms rumbled across the Carolinas on Tuesday.

But here we were, 12 people from Virginia, North Carolina, Delaware and Maryland, more than 1,500 miles away, watching a weak thunderstorm spit out cloud-to-cloud lightning and streaks of rain, most of which weren't even reaching the ground.

I wouldn't trade. I would rather have watched this storm intermittently lighting up an evening over the Plains of northeastern Colorado than lower storm clouds chunking hail and pushing out tree-breaking gusts through the Piedmont.

It is always hard to describe to someone who's never experienced a Plains thunderstorm how different even a mild storm out here is from even the most severe storms in the East.

The open expanses of prairie, the high cloud bases, the swirling winds and the enhanced ability of extremely dry air and extremely moist air to push against each other combine to create storm structures of amazing beauty, with views unblocked by trees and ridgelines.

I love trees and ridgelines. I've chosen to live among them and enjoy walking through them. I even find many aspects of our weather fascinating, which should be obvious, since I write about it year-round.

But for a couple of weeks each May, I choose to be a nomad in the Plains states, seeking out the awesome supercells over terrain that is wide open, but far from empty of character or hospitality.

After a week of quiet weather in the central United States, as the tundra made a midspring push against the advancing tropics to shove warmth and moisture away, the wind is about to start swirling out here in its age-old spring manner.

The wind was whistling again outside Wednesday morning. By Wednesday evening, we were again catching supercell thunderstorms, though not extremely violent ones, in eastern Colorado, where strong south winds were hurling dust and tumbleweed wildly.

Gulf of Mexico moisture is returning, not in a trickle, but in a torrent.

Storm chasers are on the move, too, also not in a trickle, but in a torrent.

By Wednesday night, hundreds of them, maybe a thousand or two, were clustered along the Interstate 70 corridor in Kansas, setting up for a possible multiday severe weather outbreak centered in Kansas and Nebraska.

They have come as individual weather enthusiasts and small groups in cars and sport utility vehicles, paying tour groups in vans, and university groups like us.

Somewhere in this general vicinity, the armor-plated Tornado Intercept Vehicle of Discovery Channel fame and a fleet of Doppler-on-wheels vehicles, or DOWs, will patrol the Plains in search of a close encounter with a tornado.

It's all part of Plains culture now, not to mention a boost for local economies. The hotel in WaKeeney, Kan., that we stayed in Wednesday night already had an entire floor booked to storm chasers by midday Wednesday

The cost, though, could be high for any towns in the path of tornadoes. I'm hoping that chasers are part of the solution, warning communities and collecting data on storms, and not part of the problem, clogging roads needed by emergency vehicles and law enforcement, as the severe weather unfolds.

You can see what we find in the Plains the next several days on my Weather Journal blog at roanoke.com.