Seize the storm

Gustnado!

Initial target was Mitchell, SD – there was a chance for a bust and I was going to be so mad at myself for leaving work early if I didn’t see anything.   Turns out I saw a lot – I seriously attended GustnadoFest 2006.   Small ones from 20-30 yards across to big ones that were a quarter mile to half mile wide.   The title shot was 12 miles SW of Mitchell.   But I’m getting ahead of myself…

I made it down to Mitchell by about 3:30 where I checked the status of things as Sprint has still not activated the internet east of I-90.   Saw my best chances were southwest of Mitchell.   To Plankington I drove and took 281 south past Stickney.   The first few stormy shots are 2 miles south of Stickney and while I was watching to my west, I happened to glance south and see my first dust cloud of the day.   So this was the first time I’ve ever seen debris coming off the ground (although the debris was only dirt and parts of corn stalks).   I was pretty darn excited.   I filmed this for a while until the rain got me and I headed east.   I noted another dust cloud to my north.

The next 20-30 minutes is basically a blur.   It consisted of me keeping ahead of the gust front and dodging gustnados.   As I’m retreating east, the smallest gustnados are popping up in front of me.   Suddenly this one to the southwest picks up big time.   I race ahead and pause for a bit to ascertain that it is indeed rotating, at least at the base.   I decide to call it in to the NWS.   While talking with them, it picks up even more and the dirt begins to go really high in the air.   It gets a little to close, so I raced ahead almost to Highway 37 where I get my title shot and a few others that are consecutively named.   As I’m racing, the NWS guy informs me that they do see rotation and will issue the tornado warning.   I was very careful with my wording because I didn’t want to cause a false tornado report…I left the decision in his hands.   At its biggest size, the gustnado looked like a wedge.   However I didn’t get the picture of it because I was retreating to the east at the time.

After this, I needed a break and just so happened to come along and see the KELO Stormtracker vehicle pulled over.   I pulled over and thought I’d chit-chat with them a bit.   I pull over and get out to talk with them and they didn’t really come over to me.   So I walk over to their car and peer in from a distance to see what kind of equipment they have.   One guy is sitting in the car and I try to strike up the conversation.   I told him I believe I got the first gustnado of the day.   He didn’t have much to say to that.   Brian Karstens was on the phone the whole time and Shawn Cable was filming – so I tried not to bother them.   Then they decide to pack up and leave and as they are leaving, Brian says something like, “Interesting weather, huh?” to which I replied, “It’s great!”   And that was it.   Maybe I wasn’t forward enough, but the whole thing seemed like I got snubbed.   I stuck around a bit longer – I didn’t want them to think I was following them.

From reports coming over the radio, my best next shot was toward Freeman.   I got onto 81 and continued it to a driveway east of Dolton before the railroad tracks.   Here I watched and filmed the gust front as it came across.   I got some great photage right at the end of it racing across the road.   There was a train parked on the north side of 81 – presumably he was just going to ride it out.   I stayed a bit longer and then decided to retreat back east as it was drawing near.   Well, the part that had surged close to the train was coming quickly to the east.   I decide against heading east at Dolton and continuing north as I knew I had a blacktop east option and the Dolton option had some gravel leading to it.   As I raced north, I realized that I probably was going to take the eastern edge of the dust cloud.   I sped up hoping to minimize my time in the dust cloud.   I noticed a cop car sitting a ways off of 81 on the east side getting ready to ride it out as well.   I blew past at about 75-80 – I don’t think he was about to pull me over.   I finally made my corner and it was there that the worst of it hit.   Straightline winds were throwing corn stalk remnants all over the place and then I saw a 2-3 inch branch just snap right off and get tossed to the ground along with a few other branches.   Bewildered, I sped up to get out of there only to see part of the dust cloud racing right in front of me.   I slowed down a bit and it lightened enough so I could continue my escape.

I continued to track east, trying a north option of Canistota but had not gone far enough east to outrun the dust cloud.   Back south and east I went.   I skipped the Marion option and continued to the next north option that I knew would bring me to the interstate.   It was there that I met with some other chasers from Wisconsin (or at least they had Wisconsin plates).   One of their names was Brad? but I didn’t catch the other one.   They didn’t have radar and it was here I got my internet back – which meant I was pretty close to Sioux Falls and I-29.   I quickly downloaded the latest radar to find out that I was on the leading edge of the gust front.   I grabbed a screenshot of the radar – my car was literally right under the radar indication.   They decided to ride out the storm coming in and I opted to head back home as I knew I wouldn’t see much if anything for the rest of the night.

Lo and behold, on my way home, I must have caught up with the gust front because a small gustnado popped up just to my south east and tracked north right across I-90, right over me.   Yup, I drove through it.   I got some really cool video too – just a bunch of corn stalks flying around.   I tried to snap a picture but it didn’t come out very well.

After that, I headed north at I-29 and stopped at the Baltic exit to watch some of the storms and try to find some place to relieve myself.   I had not gone to the bathroom since Mitchell, so I really had to go bad.   Scott Olson called me and he was just making the turn onto I-29.   I told him where I was and waited till he got there.   We swapped stories of the day and showed each other our pictures and video.   He ran back to his car once and found out that there was a tornado on the ground halfway from Sioux Falls to Sioux City.   There was no way we could have made that one.   Turns out Tony Laubach, Verne Carlson, and the rest of the Colorado gang caught it.

The ride home was wet – cleaned off the dust and gravel from my car.   It was peaceful though, especially after an exciting day.   I am torn as to whether I call it my first tornado or not.   I’ll have to try and pay attention to see if there were actual damage reports from it and if they end up giving it a rating.

Miles covered: 295
Mileage: 24 mpg
Approx. gustnados: 6
Gustnado report as tornado: 1

Turkey’ed  

I didn’t even get the car wet.   I started off at 4:30 getting out of Brookings and took off to Sioux Falls.   Once down there, the storms started dying and were too far away.   I saw a cell firing back to the north of Brookings and went back home.   I picked up Amy and took off north of town.   We got all the way to the Estelline exit and then went east and headed north to Clear Lake.   At this point, I found out that a tornado had been reported with that cell.   Come to find out later that it was Scott Olson who reported it.

Back to the chase, we continued to head north where I spotted a black van with what appeared to be a mesonet on top.   We pulled over for photo ops and he continued on.   We stair-stepped a little and got some more shots…of some turkeys – three of them.   Shortly after this, we were observing a large rotating cloud that had a very pretty backlight on it.   I spot a van coming up behind us and it’s Scott Olson.   He showed me his pictures of the tornado and we gabbed about how everything was good and now it wasn’t.   We were tempted at taking a shot at another cell or two but Amy and I decided it was getting too late and nothing was probably going to happen anyways.

So funny though, Scott turns back west toward the interstate with cells to our north and northeast and gets down about a quarter of a mile then pulls a U-turn and heads back toward the cells.   Apparently they had strengthened a bit.   So he went east toward the storms and we headed home.   Halfway home, we were passed by Scott on the interstate.   I’m guessing he didn’t see much.

So we observed a wall cloud, some dramatic rotation, and beautiful structure shots.   Even grabbed some video but I don’t know when I’ll get that posted.

Miles covered: 236