Seize the storm

A time and a place

Around 6:45 last night, I got a call from my mom to come over and help them move some furniture as they are in the process of getting wood flooring put in.   As I head over there, I notice a nice supercell forming in the distance.   I check the radar and see that it’s at least an hour and a half to two hours away and only has a short term forecast on it.   So I finish moving the furniture around and check the radar again - now it’s severe thunderstorm.   Not wasting any time, I filled up and got the bare essentials I needed for chasing and took off east on Highway 14.   I did notice when I picked up my stuff at home that it was now Tornado Warned.   I only came to find out later that the storm had already produced a tornado and began the process of dissapating.

Blazing speeds at times, I kept a vigil for deer.   It was only when I looked down at my map to triangulate the warnings coming over the radio that two deer ran out a quarter mile in front of me.   It still scared the crap out of me.   So I intensified my vigil, vowing not to ruin my chasemobile.

As I caught up with the storm I noticed something peculiar - I could see under it.   There was nothing - no rain, no nothing.   You can see in my pictures that I was so  concerned with getting to the storm, I didn’t pick up on the fact that it was rapidly dying.   So much so that now, I’m convinced there has to be microburst damage somewhere.   It was like air being let out of a balloon.   It just collapsed.

I still managed to get some beautiful pictures.   I’m working on my first panoramic but have discovered that I really shouldn’t do it with Microsoft Paint.   So I emailed a graphic buddy of mine at work and asked him to piece it together for me.

After all the gas in getting me there faster, I trudged on home at a miserly 55 mph.   I think the pictures are worth it though.   I shared my sunset with some guy on a motorcycle, well, he was stopped a quarter mile back up the road.

So, in keeping with the title, there is a time and a place set aside where I will get my first tornado.   Till then, I wait and enjoy the scenery.   Corn anyone?

Miles covered: 140

Yay, a storm!!!

For the lack of stormage around here lately, this came as a welcome relief from SDS (Storm Deprivation Syndrome) in June - JUNE OF ALL MONTHS.   Today is the average peak of tornadoes in South Dakota - at least we got something.   Started out in Brookings and watched the storms fire pretty quickly.   Amy and I got our stuff together, grabbed some Burger King and headed north to the Toronto exit where we took the right to Toronto and filled up with gas.   Should have been on full when we left Brookings but I had forgotten about that - whoops.   So that in part, contributed to us being in the storm as we followed it to the southeast.   Endless torrential rain and roaring pea to dime size hail escorted us to Hendricks, MN.

As we headed south on 271, we noticed a wind turbine that had one of the propellers snapped.   Part of it was flapping in the wind.   No debris was anywhere to be found.   We continued on south to Highway 14 and turned to head back home.   Pulled over on a gravel road to get the last few pictures, including the flowers.   It was a fun little chase and hey, it got the car clean.

Chasers, chasers, everywhere but no severe to tape

This was the first time where I’ve joined a convoy on a chase.   I met up with Rory Groves, developer of Swift Wx, and his wife  at Beresford, SD.    My wife and I  were invited to come along with he and a tour group.   One guy was a photographer for National Geographic from New Zealand.   He was trying to get lightning photography.   There was some CG but not too many and wasn’t too spectacular.

We went down to the Vermillion exit and stopped at a gas station for a while where I got the title shot.   It was a severe thunderstorm at this point but we were wondering why.   After a while, we went back a little north and headed over to Akron, IA following cells along the way.   We pull over and I get a bunch of more pictures.   Suddenly I see this black pickup roll by and I realize it’s Tim Samaras.   He’s the guy who drops the probes down in front of tornados.   Behind him, I see four or five cars in his entourage.   Then a little while later, I see a tan suburban go by and I wonder out loud to Rory if that was the Twister Sisters.   Rory thought Jon Davies might have went by as well.   It might have been him, but I’m not sure at all.

We take off again and drive through LeMars, IA - ice cream capital of the world, home of Wells Blue Bunny - absolutely the best dairy products EVER.   Again, we see Tim Samaras go by and Rory actually connects to his wireless internet?!?!   Yeah, he did.   It was pretty funny.   We exit on the east side of town and see who we think is the Twister Sisters pulled over on the side of the road.   Rory and I pull over to stop and say hi real quick.   Rory knows them better since he’s from the Twin Cities area and so are they.   So Amy and I got to meet them briefly and then continued on our way.   There were so many hog confinements in the area.   It smelled SO BAD!!

After heading east some more, we turn south to get ahead of a cell and were hoping it would strengthen a bit more.   It didn’t.   We went all the way south to Highway 20 and turned back to Sioux City.   We went by Moville where I quizzed Amy about why she should remember the Conoco there.   She finally got it - we spent 3 hours there a few years ago with another chaser who kept saying the cap was going to break in 45 minutes.   It never did, however there was a tornado watch issued.

So a star-studded chase with no tornadoes and only one report of hail in SD.   It wasn’t a total loss though - we had a great time getting to know some more of the chaser community.