Tag Archives | June 2007

June 28th/29th, 2007 Montana and Alberta Supercells

June 28 and 29 took us to the far northlands of Montana and southern Alberta. June 28th’s storms developed near Glacier National Park and moved north near Conrad, MT. These storms were quite electrified and produced nickel sized hail.

On June 29th, we decided to head across the border to Canada and play supercells developing off the higher terrain west of Milk River and move northeast. We intercepted the prettiest supercell I have ever witnessed in Canada! It pummeled the border crossing with golfball to tennis ball sized hail and damaged many vehicles.

June 27th, 2007 Wyoming Beauty

June 27th did not hold great promise for severe weather. However, the threat for strong storms was enough to get us north from Denver to north central Wyoming, south of Buffalo. Several storms developed, a couple marginally severe, and gave us a pretty scenic view interacting with the mountains and plains.

June 21st, 2007 South Dakota and Nebraska Supercells

It is a rare occasion that you get woken up at 6 AM with a TORNADO WARNED supercell out your window! June 21st was one of those days! A cluster of supercells developed overnight and moved southeast across south central South Dakota. We intercepted one near Kimball, SD that produced 4.25 diameter hail! Later that day, an old boundary would provide the lift and convergence to develop the best storm of the day, that also produced hail to 3.5″ in diameter!

June 19th, 2007 Kansas HP Supercell

After spending the night in Hays, Kansas, June 19th’s catch was an easy one. We were on the first cell of the day, a beautiful tornado warned classic supercell near Hill City. A second supercell developed to its south and became the show of the day. It right turned and built southward all the way south of Dodge City. However the original supercell produced a tornado that we did not see, since we had blasted south in front of the new supercell. I do not regret missing this tornado. You almost had to be in the wrong place to see it! This was one of the largest HP storms of the year.

June 13th, 2007 Ashland, Kansas Tornadic Supercell

June 13th ended up being a better chase day than I thought it would be. We started in Valentine, Nebraska after our South Dakota chase the day before and had to blast south quickly to get into position for this day. A boundary, decent shear, decent moisture and instability would set the stage for what we thought would be landspouts this day. Instead, we got a northwest moving supercell that produced baseball sized hail and a brief tornado near Ashland, Kansas.

June 12th, 2007 South Dakota Supercells

June 12th was the worst of nightmares weatherwise. Great shear was all the was present this day, as too many overnight thunderstorms would not allow much instability to form. Storms formed along a boundary, with no cap, and became outflow dominated quickly. Too many storms would form from Nebraska, northward through North Dakota. Despite several tornado watch boxes, no decent tornadoes developed this day. The images here were taken within 50 miles of Murdo, SD.

June 6th, 2007 South Dakota Badlands Tornadic Supercell

June 6th had all the ingredients for significant severe storms, including tornadoes. Good shear, a strong wave, good instability and respectable moisture would set the stage for supercell storms. SPC issued a MODERATE RISK and associated tornado watch box for western South Dakota. By 1 PM we had arrived in Wall and stopped for lunch. A couple of small towers were going up south of us. After 45 minutes of our lunch break, a supercell rapidly developed south of town. As we gathered the clients and headed out, it didn’t take long for a tornado to form. This tornado, although not terribly strong, stayed on the ground for 25 minutes. We could never get any closer than 15 miles from it. Later, the storm turned into a monster HP supercell before lining out.

June 1st, 2007 Colorado High Based Severe Storms

June 1st didn’t have tremendous promise as a short wave moved across Colorado where there was extremely limited surface moisture. By late afternoon a few high based storms developed west of Sterling and provided a beautiful lightning show and rainbow.