Storm Chase 2008
Daily Journal
July 9th - Well, after being delayed for 45 minutes, we finally took off from Rochester heading to NYC where I will connect on a flight to Chicago. Before leaving Rochester I realized that Jen & I had accidentally switched cell phones, so if anyone needs to get ahold of me, you will have to call Jen's cell number.
As always, I am very excited for the trip and can't wait to get out in the plains to see those massive supercell thunderstorms!! I am looking forward to catching up with those I have chased with before and meeting the new participants. I wonder what might be in store for us this year: large hail encounters, strong winds, getting the vans stuck, some tornadoes perhaps... It's an adventure every year and I am definitely ready to begin this year's!! Stay tuned as the adventure unfolds - I will post daily records, pictures and videos of our journeys and encounters. July 10th - Today we headed to COD at 9am so Karl could administer a final exam for his students, while I set-up this website and got caught up on email. After some lunch we headed back to Karl's place to pick up his son Brandon and then it was back to COD. I was briefed on the new vans and electronics and given the paperwork for the trip. From 6-9 pm we held the pre-chase class and we met all the participants. It was great to see all those I have chased with in the past and I am looking forward to getting to know the others I have not. Midway through the class one of the emergency management participants was informed that an impressive shelf cloud was looming overhead at the leading edge of a severe thunderstorm (a bow echo'ing squalline) heading into our area. So we took a quick field trip outside to gaze at the impressive turbulent cloud structure and leading edge of the storm. It was definitely a great way to kick off our trip! As it started to rain, we headed inside and continued our class, but with one eye out the windows as the rain pounded on the glass, followed by small hail. At the end of the class we looked at the current model forecasts and tomorrow looks to be a chase day in NW Iowa/SW Minnesota.
After the class we finished prepping Van 1, parked it for the night, grabbed a bite to eat and headed back to Karl's to get some rest for our first day in the field tomorrow. It was lights out at 11pm....July 11th - The alarm sounded at 5:15 am and it was time to get ready to depart. On the way to COD I quickly realized that I had left my watch on the nightstand at Karl's! I guess I will have to rely on my cell phone, but wait! I have my weather watch with me! It's always good to have a back-up! We met everyone at COD to load the vans and head out on our adventure. We departed COD at 7:15 heading westward....
We made a quick gas stop in High Rock Falls and then it was onward to the largest truck stop in the world on I-80 in Iowa!! After a quick lunch, we're back on the road at 10:30 am heading for our initial target of Marshall, MN. At 2:30 pm the SPC (Storm Prediction Center) issued a tornado watch for most of MN extending southward to Redwood Falls. However, the greatest tornado potential is still along the warm front draped across central MN to our north and in the vicinity of very poor chase country with huge lakes and national parks. Current surface dew points are in the low 70's with temperatures in the mid 90's, providing for a very unstable atmosphere. Current models are forecasting SB Capes in access of 5500! We now are traveling as northward as possible before storm initiation, likely within the next two hours. Our new target is now a little further north at Willmar, MN. At 3:45 several storm erupted in Northern MN and all three had tornado warnings on them. Again, it is frustrating to see storms pop in a place where we cannot chase or get to! Then to make matters worse, a wrong turn got us off course slightly and slowed our northward progress. At this point we hope that the storms that continue to erupt along the cold front do not merge into a large squalline until after dark. However, with the forcing along the front, storm merger is inevitable, it just a matter of when...At 4:20 pm as we raced NW on county route 5 we could see the southern storm with some detail and could make out a nice back-sheared anvil, overshooting top, and large streaming anvil off to the ENE. Unfortunately it is too far north and in that dreaded unchasable country. Further to the south of that storm a new storm was firing along with several other towering cumulus towers. For the past few hours we have encountered strong 20-30 kt southerly winds, which will feed the storms moisture-laden air once they fire. We topped off the fuel tanks in Willmar, MN and pushed northward to intercept our first storm! While it did produce some nice lowerings and CG (cloud-to-ground) lightning, it eventually billowed out a gust front that came racing towards us and we had to move. We decided to go NE to get ahead of the same cell and continue following it. Later we would learn that the gust front that pushed SE'ward may have spawned a weak tornado near the town of Willmar....BUMMER!! As we continued following the storms eastward they gained strength and speed, and soon overtook us. We encountered heavy rain, gusty winds up to 45 kts (estimated) and small pea-sized hail. We tried to get back ahead of the squalline, but it was now moving too fast. So we called it a day and headed to St. Cloud, MN for dinner and our hotel. While at dinner, I ventured outside to take a peak at the distant storms and was greeted by a nice mammatus cloud deck on the backside of the storms. Not too shabby for our first day out! Unfortunately the cold front that sparked off these storms is crashing southward and taking all the moisture and instability with it. Therefore, it will take a couple days for the atmosphere to re-energize itself and for the moisture to make a return to the high plains. So the next two days look to be "down" days, where we will likely go sight seeing - where will be discussed and decided upon at tomorrow's weather briefing. On a good note, next week Wed through Sat look to be interesting as a few systems are forecast to move along the northern states with good moisture and wind flow aloft in the atmosphere. I made a long-term prediction tonight at dinner that Thursday we will see 3 tornadoes.... Time will tell....(752.8 mi)
July 12 - Well, as we all awake today we have been greeted with pictures, videos and stories about the tornado that hit Willmar, MN. It was a decent tornado that was on the ground for about 4 minutes and produced a damage path about a mile long. Here is one news story for it: http://ksax.com/article/stories/S508573.shtml?cat=10268
Here are a couple videos of the one we missed:
It's always hard to see "the one that got away", but that is also what makes chasing so challenging....
The next two days will be "down" days as the cold front continues to crash down to Oklahoma before stalling out tonight, taking all the rich boundary layer moisture with it. Our hopes are that by Monday, enough moisture will retreat back northward into Colorado/Nebraska to kick off some storms on the leeward side of the Rocky Mountains. The SPC has a "see text" for that area Monday and indicate a chance for supercells, which will be largely dependant upon the moisture return. The long term forecasts still look favorable in the upper plains states (Montana/Dakotas/Minnesota/Wisconsin) and our chases will be determined by a delicate balance between available moisture and upper level flow. However, that is a long ways out in the forecast, so we take it with a grain of sand as it may, and often does, change. Today we headed out at 11:00 am to the Mall of America to play around for a couple hours and get our shop on. After that we will be heading to the Space Alien Restaurant for lunch and to allow Alien Gonzalez to spend some time with his people, then we'll be pushing westward into South Dakota to make for a quicker drive to Mt. Rushmore tomorrow (our tentative plan)...During dinner at the Space Alien, we were treated to more reports, pictures and videos of the tornado in Willmar, and found out it was rated at EF3. We reached our hotel at 11:15 pm, too late to enjoy the pool tonight - it closed at 11 pm. Bummer! So we had some fun playing foosball and darts for awhile before calling it a night around 12:30 am.(398.1 mi)
Day 3 - Up at 8 am and on our way by 9:15, we are heading west towards Mount Rushmore. Van #2 apparently has a bad vibration, like a wheel weight may have been knocked off. After a quick inspection it does appear as though the rear driver side wheel has a bit of a "hop". Good thing to day is a down day and we have some time to attend to it. We will likely have to have that taken care of later today sometime. We are thinking that we will stay in Valentine, NE tonight.
We stopped around 10:30 in Mitchell, SD at a Super Walmart to get the tire checked out and grab some lunch at the Subway. It's a good thing we had the tire checked, as one of the belts had come loose balding the tire and it would have likely popped within the next 500 miles! At noon we were back on the road heading westward on I-90...Mount Rushmore was very cool, and I was able to identify many of the minerals and rocks in that area: granite, quartz, and schist being the most prevalent. I even scored a nice piece of Schist to use in my classroom! After Mt. Rushmore, we headed into Grand Rapids, SD and had dinner at the Firehouse Microbrewery. After some delicious buffalo burgers, we headed to our hotel in Winner, SD that is a little more upscale with a great pool that we are all looking forward to! After a long game of "Keep-Away" and relaxing in the Jacuzzi we hit the hay at 12:30 am.(610.2 mi)
Up at 8:00 am and we were greeted to the smell of fresh cinnamon buns at the continental breakfast....mmmm..... We had our morning weather briefing, which indicates that the nice, deep boundary layer moisture is working its way back into SW NE while the better 500 millibar flow is further to the north. Our hopes are that we can get a storm or two to fire in the vicinity of the Nebraska sandhills, and with the lack of deep layer moisture, it would likely be LP (low precipitation). Our initial target city is Valentine, NE, where we will keep tabs on the atmopshere and adjust as necessary: either we will play the moisture plume as it creeps northward, or we'll play the better flow further north. Time will tell.....We reached Valentine, NE around noon, where we gased up and had lunch (Subway). Then at 1:00 pm the SPC issued a "Slight" thunderstorm outlook for the area stretching southwestward to the NE/CO border. Since the moisture will be deeper and the higher terrain can aide in initiating thunderstorm development, we decided to head SW to the Colorado border, where we will wait for storm initiation. Most likely if a storm does fire, it will be high-based and LP, which would make for some excellent photo opportunities! The storms may also pose a risk for large hail. Our initial target is North Platte, NE.Once in North Platte, we topped off the fuel tanks, debugged the windows, and took a look at the latest data. The moisture was still working northward and there was a sfc boundary just to our north and west. We decided to push a bit further west where storm initiation is likely within the next two hours or so. Our new target city is Ogalalla, NE. As we left North Platte, we passed by the Whiskey Creek BBQ restaurant that we stopped at on the past two year's chases, where each time we were treated to spectacular sunsets. As we traveled westward on I-80 we could see towering cumulus clouds building to the west/southwest, indications that the moisture had indeed made it this far and was interacting with the instability in the atmosphere. At 3:30 pm an updated radar image revealed a couple cells that had formed to our west and southwest, and cumulus clouds were bubbling along the sfc boundary. While the baby storms were still high-based at this point in the chase, we needed to get on them in the event that they became rooted in the boundary layer moisture field. Then a little interaction with the sfc boundary (or other mesoscale features) and blammo! A supercell could form! So we transitioned into intercept/chase mode and our second official storm chase began... We stopped in Ogallala, NE where we had a good data connection and could monitor the storms. As we munched on Dairy Queen frozen delights, the storms contunued to to perculate around us and the lightning frequency began to increase. Then, to our surprise, a tornado report was issued by a trined weather spotter off to our west followed by a tornado warning issued by the SPC!! We looked towards that cell and there it was! A landspout tornado extending down from a building cumulus tower off to our west/northwest (time was 4:31 pm). We were 17 miles away from it, so it was challenging to photograph, but it was a visible tornado non the less! It stayed visible for over 9 minutes before dissipating - if we could have been closer I am sure the pictures would have been spectacular!! We continued to watch the storms in hopes that another tornado would form as the storms interacted with the boundary in our vicinity. Laura, one of the veretan chasers in the group, had a Hi-Def video camera taping the tornado, so the rest of us left ours packed away and focused on taking photos ...at least we thought it was taping...come to find out, the record button was never pressed!! This just goes to show, that you can never have too many videos or pictures of an event!! At this time, the storms were beginning to injest the rich boundary moistureand were beginning to produce substantial rain/hail cores. The lightning also increased in intensity and frequency, so we had to get on the move.We headed back east on I-80 watching the storms on either side of the vans for development and spin-ups. By 6:15 pm, the storms had merged into a conglomerate of cells, with the most intense tracking behind us along I-80. At 6:59, Becky was the first to proclaim, "tornado 9 o'clock!" as another landspout touched down to our north (near Gothenburg, NE) underneath a developing cell ahead of the main line. This one was beautifully back-lit, but unfortunately dissipated by the time we could stop the vans and get out. I snapped one picture, but this tornado was also far away and the picture came out blurry. Pedro, another seasoned group member, was able to shoot some video of it, but again, although it is visible, it is also blurry. Nontheless, we had seen our second 'nader of the day!! We continued trecking down I-80 stopping when we were able to get far enough ahead of the gust front to get out and take some photos/video shots. The gust front was pretty impressive and often picked up dust, like a dust storm! When it would overtake us at each stop, we would get blasted with 30-40 kt winds and sand - the phrase "I wear my sunglasses at night" wasn't just from the song! We were also treated to some great CG lightning along the way, and I was able to capture one in a great photo! (see photos Day 2) Eventually the storm began to loose strength and structure, so we decided to head to the hotel in Kearney, NE to check in, and pick up some discount coupons they offered us for dinner at the Whiskey Creek BBQ restaurant in town! Mmmmm!! So we checked in and then headed over to Whiskey Creek as the storm began rolling into town. As a tradition, we always order steaks after a successful tornado chase, so we all had steaks and man were they tasty!! Also, if you ever go to a Whiskey Creek restaurant, make sure to leave room for their peach cobbler!! It's to die for! While we ate, the storm rolled through outside dumping rain, flashing lightning, and spitting small hail. After dinner we retired to the hotel to relax in the jacuzzi. While relaxing we met a couple from Syracuse, NY who were on a 28-day cross-country excursion. They thought storm chasing was very cool and had all kinds of questions for us to answer for them. We also learned that we were not the only chasing group staying in that hotel; Silver Lining Tours was also there, led by Roger Hill. We would later learn that they only saw the lightning show. Looking at the storm reports recorded on the SPC site, we saw the only two tornadoes in NE. There were also reports of a few landspout 'naders in MN. As I began to work on the website posting our successful chase, it was brought to my attention that more storm cells were heading right for us with vivid lightning and one cell indicating some rotation on radarand had DBZ values of 70. With the excitment from the earlier chase still in us, despite it being 12:30 am, a small group of us decided to do a night chase to see if we could capture some nighttime lightning shots and maybe more. So a group of 7 of us packed up the video and photo gear and headed SW out of Kearney. The lightning was like a strobe light, non-stop. However, most of it was IC (intercloud) and CC (Cloud-to-cloud), not conducive to good lightning pictures. However, we continued SW to get closer to the strongest cell on the back edge of the cluster, where there was alaso a sharp gradient between the core and rain-free air. From behind you can often see the main updraft tower(s) that can be lit-up by large CG bolts and/or riddled with IC lightning, making for spectacular photos. We ended up stopping several places, only to be disappointed with the "show". We ended up in the Holdrege, NE area as the core moved in. As the leading edge of the gust front approached, one of the participants in the back proclaimed, "Is that a tornado at our 9 o'clock?". We peared westward waiting for the next flash of lightning to light-up that part of the storm and WHOA! There was a rotating column 150 yards off to the west in the field right next to us stretching from the cloud base to the ground!! Jim, our driver, exclaimed, "Holy $%@#!", slammed the van into drive and hit the gas! As another flash of lightning lit up the "funnel", everyone burst into laughter. The "tornado" turned out to be one of the irrigation hoses spraying water on the field, and the winds were making the water spray in a vertical orientation, perfectly sized for our vantage of the cloud-to-ground spacing! So that is now referred to as our "waterspout tornado". By this time, the storms were losing strength with DBZ values of only 60, and the frequency of the lightning had diminished. So we decided to let the core hit us to see if there was any hail, and also to position ourselves on the backside of the storm for another potential photo opportunity. There was some small hail (.25" or less), but nothing severe. After the passage of the core, new development on the trailing edge and further loss of intensity ruined our photo opportunity, so we decided to call it a night and head back. We rolled into the hotel at 3:00 am and were satisfied that, although we didn't get the photo opportunity we desired, we at least gave it a valiant try. As we slipped into sleepyland, the sound of thunder serenaded us to sleep....(411.1 mi + ~ 75 miles from the night chase)
Day 5 - Up at 9:00 am and today, after the morning weather briefing, the students analyzed weather maps to see if they could find any boundaries/fronts/etc. and see where the moisture was. Today it appears that NW Nebraska will be our focus, playing the boundary that is still draped across the state. We leftthe hotel at 11:30 am and headed eastward to Grand Island, NE for lunch. After lunch we were back on the road at 1:30 pm heading NNE towards our initial target of O'neill, NE. At 2:10 pm we could see towering cumulus clouds beginning to build in Holt County near our target area (about an hour away), so we continued driving in that direction...
Once in O'neill, we topped off the gas tanks as the storm began to crank up to our west. We then made a short track south and stopped to watch it. The core grew in size and intensity taking on a turquoise color - an indication of hail. We then proceded to do a dance with the storm, where we would reposition ourselves to a good vantage point and wait for the outflow (cold air billowing out from under the storm) to blast us, and then reposition ourselves and wait, and so on. Early on the storm had somegreat structure and looked as though it could produce a tornado. However, as time went on, it slowly lost its features and turned into a "windbag" as Karl likes to call them (aka: a "hail-bomb" or "beast-honker"). During one of our re-positioning maneuvers, a real nice gustnado spun-up off to our south (see pics from today). At 6:00 pm we decided to leave the storm and head to our hotel in Norfolk, NE. We were treated with some decent CG lightning on our way...
The hotel was awesome! Big rooms, big comfy beds, really nice pool and jacuzzi, attached bar and restaurant, 3 beach volleyball courts, 3-hole golf course, putt-putt golf course, and a really nice continental breakfast. We checked-in and then proceded to the party room (outfited with flatscreens and a huge dining table) for dinner. As we dined, the storms outside produced a spectacular mammatus cloud deck overhead and in other patches across the sky. As the sun set, some of those patches lit up beautifully and we were able to get some nice pictures (see pictures Day 5). Following dinner we headed to the pool area for some jacuzzi relaxing and a game of "Keep Away" in the pool. When the pool closed at midnight, Laura and I looked at the radar to see what the storms looked like for lightning and peered outside to see if a nighttime lightning chase was in store. The storms were sparking pretty good, so a few of us loaded up and headed south out of Norfolk on I-81 and found a real nice elevated viewpoint about 15 miles south of town. The frequency of good anvil crawlers and CG strikes could have been better, but when they occurred, they were impressive. We did manage to capture some of the activity, however n most cases we were in between shots, makign adjustments, etc. and missed the really good ones. Around 1:30 am we headed back to the hotel and hit the haysac...(342.6 mi + ~30 from night chase)
Day 6 - Today we were up at 8:00 am and enjoyed a wonderful continental breakfast of waffles, omlettes, sausage, bacon, pastries, juices and fruit. We left the hotel at 9:30 heading northbound towards west-central Minnesota. While we still have a queeziness leftover from the last chase in MN, we hope that will change today! Meteorologically, today looks the best for tornadic supercells than any day so far, and thus we are looking forward to what today brings. The boundary we have played the last two days has pushed northward into west-central MN and central SD, where the mid and upper level flow is stronger, and with the surface winds being SE to E, there is substantial directional shear. Our initial target area is Wheaton, MN.
After lunch in Brookings, SD, we gased up and looked at the current data. We noticed a boundary laying from Edmunds to Codington counties in SD. So we decided to move northward to Watertown, SD near the boundary and then wait and see where storms begin to fire. At this point the skies were mostly clear with a few small cumulus clouds developing along the boundary. The temperature was up to 88 degrees, and our hopes are that the temperature will continue to rise into the mid 90's to provide the instability the storms need. It always amazes me how we can go from clear skies to intercept mode in a matter of minutes when the storms fire up! At 5:00 pm we could see outflow and other boundaries interacting to oru north and west on the visible satellite, so we decided to move a bit NW towards the boundary interactions in the vicinity of Aberdeen, SD. Temperatures were now in the low 90's and we could see boundary layer cumulus clouds begining to perculate in the unstable atmosphere. The SPC issued a mesoscale discussion and mentioned the increasing threat for supercell thunderstorms in our area. At 6:00 pm towering cumulus-congestus began to build to our NW near Roslyn, SD, so we headed out to intercept and the chase began!We stopped in Webster, SD to watch things, as the previous cumulus towers all fell apart and became glaciated. After an hour or so, we decided to grab dinner at the local A&W (which was hosting an auto gathering) and continue monitoring the situation. After dinner we mingled with the locals, who were very friendly and took an interest in our appearance in their town. At 7:45 we called the day a bust and headed for our hotel in Pierre, SD. At this time the SPC issued a severe thunderstorm watch for all of central and NE'ern SD as new cells began to fire in central SD about 3 hours away near Pierre. My hopes are that the cells will continue to grow and if nothing else, we will have to drive through them to get to hotel. Depending on what happens with them, we could see some good photo opportunities as the sun sets and lights up the storms...Tomrrow, it appears we will be driving out west into Wyoming/Montana to get into position for Friday, even though we could chase in NE Nebraska tomorrow. However, if we did chase NE tomrrow, we wouldn't be able to make a show in WY/MT on Friday if it occurs. So tonight we will be looking at both days very carefully to see if we want to sacrifice tomorrow's chase for a potentially better chase on Friday out west. Just then, as we were heading westward listening to our "BUST" disc, the storms down near our hotel really got going . Then a report of 2.75" hail was reported with broken windows and dented cars. So as the saying goes, "The fat lady hasn't sung yet"! We were back into chase mode and hoping we could reach the storm before nightfall. Our target is Faulk County, SD where we will intercept the storm. The core of the storm then split into two, where one cell then moves southeast and the other moves northeast. The left mover can create rare, anti-cyclonic tornadoes, so that is what we are now after. It was now 8:45 pm and we only had about 35 minutes of daylight left, then we would have to rely on lightning to light up the base, and any inherent features. We intercepted the storm at around 9:00 and could make out what appeared to be a large mesocyclone hugging the ground. At this point the storm was sparking something fierce with many CG strikes and a glittering updraft tower. We were in a data and cell phone hole, so we had to rely on our sight to determine what the storm was doing. It created an outflow that began surging north towards us (we were on the north side of the storm because this was the "left-mover" and would develop a tornado viewable from the north, rather from the south). It also appeared as though the storm may have split again, so we weaved our way through a network of dirt/gravel roads to stay on the north side of the storm. We followed the storm until about 11:00 pm, when we decided to let the storm roll NE. As it departed our location, we could see the backside of the storm clearly and from that storm southward, the horizon was just glittering with lightning, so stayed for a bit and shot video and pcitures of the awesome show in front of us. I tried using my camera to shoot some long-exposure shots of the main updraft, but I could not get the controls right, and since it was dark, making any adjustments was tough. So I will rely on Laura for those shots, since she has a really nice DSLR and has a lot of experience shooting with it. Around 11:20 we packed up and headed for our hotel once again. It would take us an hour and a half to get there, then check in and start looking at tomorrow and Friday's data to determine what to do over the next two days. It was lights out at 1:30 am... (556.7 mi)
Day 7 - Up at 8:45, we enjoyed the continental breakfast and then began looking at data for today and tomorrow. The outlook for today looks fair at best, and tomorrow still looks decent for Wyoming/Montana, so we are going to travel westward today and not chase in Nebraska. It will be a long trip (on the order of 6 hours or so) and we'll get a couple of the educational weather videos out of the way. We headed out of the hotel at 10:00 am...
At 12:15 we pulled into Wall Drug, SD, home of the largest drug store in the country! We had lunch and looked around a bit. I was tempted to purchase a jacalope head mount, but then I came to my senses. We headed out of there at 1:30 as several busloads of tourists rolled in. So it was on to our hotel in Sheriton, WY. On our way we decided to take a small detour and visit Devil's Tower. At a scenic location we stopped for photos and gathered for a group picture. We then hit the tourist shop before heading back on the road at 5:00 pm. As we headed towards Sheridan, storms began to fire off of the foothills of the Rockies, but with northerly surface winds and weak mid-level winds, they would not become severe. Far off in the distance we could see the snow-covered peaks of the Rockies. We had dinner around 7:30 pm and then proceded to the hotel as a thunderstorm began to drop rain on us. Unfortunately, the hotel closed the pool due to the lightning. So some of us went to the local pool hall to play pool and darts, while a few others went to see the new Batman movie and said it was awesome. I'm looking forward to seeing that when I get back!(444.6 mi)
Day 8 - Since we were located near our target area, we slept in a bit today and had our weather briefing at about 10:30 am. While Karl looked at data more carefully, the group analyzed weather maps, looking at the surface, 850 mb, 750 mb, 500 mb, and 250 mb levels. With an upper level trough swinging into south central Canada, SSE surface winds veering to WNW at the upper levels, and ample amounts of moisture, it should prove to be an interesting day! We left the gotal at 11:30 am and grabbed a quick lunch before heading north towards Billings, MT. At this time storms were beginning to fire of of the higher terrain, but they were elevated and only posed a hail threat at this point. Later on today, they should become rooted in the boundary layer, sucking in moisture rich air in an unstable environment. Once this happens, with the amount of vertical sheer (turning of the winds with height), they should begin to rotate and pose a tornado risk. That's what we'll be looking for!
At 2:45 pm the SPC issued a Severe Thunderstorm Watch for our area - things were looking good! Then two large cells developed, one to our NW and one to our WSW. We decided to intercept and chase the southern storm since it would encounter the better moisture and would likely cut off the inflow to the northern storm. As we began traveling towards its base, we quickly realized just how terrible the road network is in that part of Montana!! However, we were able to see the base for a bit before our road network got cut-off and we had to retreat back to the main interstate. At one point when the base was visible (but far away), we may have seen a brief spin-up as it appeared that a substantial dust cloud was being lifted under the main updraft. We'll have to go back and look closely at the video to see if we can make anything out. So at this point, we cannot say that it was a tornado. In an effort to get back sout of the storm, we had to cut through part of the core of the storm. We encountered some pretty intense hail, with the largest hailstones being around quarter-sized (not quite large enough to do any damage to the vans, but enough to raise our excitment). Since we were then close to a gas station that we stopped at before, we stopped again just to fill the tanks before we chased the storm eastward into "no man's land". So here's where our chase day took a turn for the worst. First, the roads weaved all over the crazy place in between the hills and second, they were dirt/gravel to boot. After traveling on these rollercoaster roads at rollercoaster speeds, we finally were catching back up with the storm when "PSSS! Thud, thud, thud, thud...."! Our rear passenger tire blew a flat! Mind you, we hadn't seen any signs of human civilization for a good hour or more! We were in the middle of nowhere for sure! So out came the jacks and the spare was put on. However, it wasn't as easy as one might hope due to the gravel/dirt road being wet/soft from the earlier storm's precipitation. Finally after a good 30-40 minutes the spare tire was on and we could continue, but wait - the spare only had 55 lbs of air in it (rather than 70), so we had to take it easy until we could put more air into it. So for the next 2+ hours, we trecked across the barren winding gravel roads, dodging cattle from time to time, and encountering worse road conditions as we worked further east. By the time we reached the first town of Upton, WY, the storms had pushed well off to the SE and were out of reach, not to mention our hotel for the night was located some 240+ miles away! It was around 8:30 pm by this point, and we had a long drive ahead of us. We finally pulled into our hotel in Bismarck, ND at 2:45 am...(633.2 mi)
Day 9 - Well, it was safe to say that everyone hit the hay pretty hard last night after our non-meteorological eventful day. Today we were up again at 9:30, had breakfast, and loaded the vans. The outlook for today could be better....much better.... but at least there will be storms today. The main problem is that they will likely be very widespread, with the best potential way down in SE South Dakota and the northern half of Iowa - too far for us to travel today, unless we had left by 6:00 am (which would have been brutal on our drivers).
We left the hotel at 10:30 am and began our treck SE. As it turns out, we may be able to catch the show (if there is one to be had) in SE SD later today (about 6 hours away). As we made our way towards Nebraska/Iowa, gas became a big issue: we have gas cards for BP, Shell, and Conoco, but BP pulled all their stations out of several states (including ND & SD), our Conoco card had some issue that needed to be resolved by the college and was declined, and we couldn't find a shell to save us. So Karl had to use his own personal credit card, but during the efforts to find a BP or Shell gas station, we also lost a good hour of driving time! We finally caught up with the storms near Sioux City, IA. They were somewhat disorganized and were forming along a surface boundary. Then a decent cell popped to our WSW and we tried to get into position, but the road network wasn't the best and when we tried to drop south out of the storm's core, the road had been closed (probably due to earlier rains that either flooded it or took out a bridge). Eventually we did get south of the activity, but it no longer looked decent anymore, so we decided to head to our hotel in Fremont, NE. We stopped for a bathroom break at a gas station somewhere between Denison and Dunlap Iowa, when all of a sudden a mesocyclone (as indicated on radar) formed just to our NW heading right for the station! As Karl yelled for everyone to get in the vans the SPC issued a tornado warning and we sped down the road to get a better look. I can only imagine what the people working there were thinking! Trees and a double-stacked train made viewing the storm difficult,not to mention it was getting pretty dark at this point. We didn't see any tornadoes, but the storms looked dark and ominous. We coninued towards Fremont stopping a couple mor etimes to look at the storms and watch the vivid and frequent lightning show. We rolled into Fremont at 10:30 and got some diner at the Whiskey Creek restaurant right next to our hotel before checking in. After a long day of traveling, everyone hung out in a couple groups to reminice about this and other storm chases and just relax for a bit before heading off to bed around 12:30 am.(696.7 mi)
Day 10 - Today we were up at 9:30 to snag breakfast at the hotel and then we headed out at 10:30 am. Our initial plan was to simply drive back to COD, but as we were loading the vans, several thunderstorms had developed just to our NW that were reported to be dropping 1.75" hail stones, so we decided to go try to intercept some large hail. It only took about 15 minutes to get into position, but unfortunately as the storms approached us, they all fizzled out and all we saw were a few raindrops. Bummer! So we called it a day and headed back to COD. On on way back, we grabbed munch at the machine Shop Restaurant, which now seems to be a common occurance on the way back from these trips, as we have stopped there every time so far. We rolled into COD at
