What an event!! After watching model run after model run I couldn’t resist the 1700 mile round trip to eastern South Dakota from Denver to chase this one!!! I arrived in Sioux Falls, SD around 3 PM. I couldn’t decide whether to sit tight, head to southern Minnesota or head west towards the advancing front. Each situation had its positives and negatives. After much analysis and some very quick driving, I decided to head west towards the front, which now was firing a string of supercells along it. I targeted the southern supercell coming across the Missouri river north of Pierre. I caught up with it east of Oneida and what a sight it was!!! It took about 10 minutes for it to drop its first of 7 tornadoes that I saw. The structure was second to none as this beautiful striated updraft produced one tornado after another. The largest and strongest tornado developed southwest of Wessington and tracked southeast near Wolsey to southwest of Huron before dissipating. It stayed on the ground over 40 minutes and resembled the Manchester, SD tornado from June 24, 2003 (which I saw from the south side). Finally, the storm produced one last tornado southeast of Huron as it weakened moving towards I-29.
August 20th, 2006 Bennett, Colorado Tornadoes
I wasn’t planning a chase this day. However, as the afternoon progressed an outflow boundary raced south from convection in Wyoming, and intersected the DCVZ boundary that was quite evident running from Bennett to Prospect Valley, Colorado. Good instability, weak shear and the boundary would provide a perfect set up for non-supercell (landspout) tornadoes! And the atmosphere didn’t disappoint! By 5 PM a VERY nice line of towers exploded along the boundary. By 6 PM I had seen 3 funnels. At 6:37 PM the first tornado touched down 4 miles north of my house. It stayed on the ground for 20 minutes before dissipating. The second tornado touched down at 6:54 PM and stayed on the ground for 9 minutes. It was much larger than the first, but outflow from the downdraft of the first cell would kill this tornado much sooner than the first one. At one point in time both were on the ground !
May 5th, 2006 Patricia, Texas Supercell and Tornado
May 5th took us to the southern Texas panhandle for what looked like a decent supercell and tornado day. Strong southwest flow aloft on top of southeast surface winds along an outflow boundary would set the stage for tornadic supercells. By late afternoon storms developed near Hobbs, New Mexico and intensified as they moved towards Seminole, Texas. The main cell entrained too much dry air and struggled until it moved off the dryline. At that point a monster updraft developed and spun like a top. A nice stovepipe shaped tornado formed back in the hail and rain northeast of the clear slot.
June 29th, 2005 Southwest Minnesota Tornadoes
The set up this day was conducive to supercells. A dryline/cold front would advance across far western Minnesota and provide the focal point for thunderstorm development. We started in west central Minnesota north of Marshall. Convection developed and went linear quickly. So we dropped south where the cap was stronger and caught a nice isolated supercell. This storm produced at least 2 tornadoes we could confirm.
June 8th, 2005 Oskaloosa, Kansas Tornadic Supercell
I must admit, this day caught me by surprise. We started in eastern South Dakota. After morning analysis and looking at model data, it appeared to be a respectable chance for large supercells in eastern Kansas with extreme instability and decent shear. As we arrived in Jefferson county, Kansas a supercell exploded from a small cumulus tower. Within 20 minutes the top was at 60,000 feet. Within another 30 minutes a tornado formed. This tornado narrowly missed the town of Oskaloosa.
May 12th, 2005 South Plains, Texas Tornadoes & Hailstorm
It was the day in between tours and Dr Dave Gold rallied the troops to meet me in OKC early. We didn’t get out the door till 1 PM, headed southwest towards the triple point near Plainview. By 3 PM we were hearing of tornado reports and the Baron system showed a nice supercell near Plainview. I thought we would get storms firing off that boundary most of the afternoon, but never figured on what we saw.
We arrived southeast of Silverton by 5 PM and watched as the eastern supercell spun and tried hard, but developed outflow problems. We finally blew it off and headed through Silverton and south towards South Plains. The storm looked MONSTROUS and very HP. As we approached 207/689 intersection a tapered elephant trunk tornado formed just to our southwest. This tornado widened and strengthened as it moved east across 207. We SLOWLY drove south as it approached the highway, and at one point were about 200 yards north of it, getting the best contrast we could get. We had a Japanese film crew with us who had a probe similar to Tim Samaras’s, and they were able to drop it in the path of this tornado. The footage was INCREDIBLE!
The tornado crossed 207 and dissipated about one mile east of the highway. According to my time stamp on my camcorder, it was on the ground for 12 minutes. Many power poles were down, blocking 207, with some out buildings destroyed. It missed South Plains by about 2 miles or it could have been devastating!!! A second broad circulation developed about two miles east of the first tornado and a multivortex tornado formed. The motion in the cloud base and the tornado was horrendous!!!!! At one time I counted 4 vortices in this tornado. Then the real fun started as we were getting softball sized hailstones wrapping around the back of the tornadic circulation. It dissipated after about 5 minutes. Due to softball sized hailstones, we stopped and to seek shelter in a farmer’s tin carport. Then we had to sit and watch as baseball to softball sized hail took the farmhouse apart, along with trees and two windows in the van as we couldn’t get it totally under the shelter. One of the most prolific hailstorms I have EVER witnessed. Then we took off and headed east to Childress and watched the fantastic CG display with this monster!
April 10th, 2005 St. John, Kansas Supercell & Funnels
April 10 was a day I wouldn’t soon forget. We had to leave Denver early to escape a raging blizzard. We were able to get out in front of it and into the warm sector under sunny skies. This was a tough day forecast wise for me as it looked like the dryline bulge would be the place to play. We later discovered too much dry air and a perpendicular orientation of the mid level winds to the dryline would cause the storms to form in a line instead of discreet supercells. Too much dry air never let the storm updrafts get organized for long periods. Later we also found out about the tornadoes in Trego county, to our north. We had actually taken off from the Pratt area to head back north and play that spot, but changed our minds. Live and learn. Thank goodness it is early season!
June 24th, 2003 South Dakota Tornadofest
Some days you never forget. This day was to be one of those days. I spent the night in O’Neill with my tour and my fiancé Caryn who had yet to see a tornado. This was to quickly change. Morning analysis showed a well defined boundary along the NE/SD border extending east/west. This boundary slowly drifted northward into South Dakota by early afternoon, as did we. Cells started developing west of me in the hot air, but we waited patiently near Pickstown, SD. By 3 PM, it was evident we needed to go north to near I-90 and the Mitchell area. As we drove north, a supercell rapidly developed just west of Mitchell. By the time we could get the base into view, a huge block wall cloud was visible. Soon, a large cone tornado formed west of Mitchell, south of I-90. We approached the tornado to our north, but were a good 10 miles from it as it roped out, while another weaker tornado formed after the occlusion to the east. By the time we reached updraft base, the show was over. But we did manage to catch a couple decent views of both tornadoes.
Next, I noticed an explosive updraft northwest of town. We raced northwest towards the town of Woonsocket and as we approached a truncated cone tornado formed. This tornado morphed into a large stovepipe, then elephant trunk, then stovepipe again as we watched from 1.5 miles east of it. A GORGEOUS tornado to say the least. After 12 minutes, it dissipated. The occluded updraft died, as a new meso formed to our northeast. However, now the road options were pathetic with only dirt and gravel roads to use to keep up with the storm. As we zigzagged across the countryside northeast of Woonsocket, another supercell was developing farther to our east. It quickly dropped twin tornadoes about 8 miles east of us. We decided to abandon our efforts on our shriveling storm and go after this intensifying tornadic supercell south of Iroquois, SD. As we maneuvered muddy dirt roads, another tornado formed under the new storm. This nice rope tornado was about 5 miles to our east. As we got closer, now about 6 miles south of Iroquois, a multivortex tornado formed along with a small satellite tornado. What a sight!!!!!!!
I decided to get the tour closer, so we raced up to Iroquois, then east of highway 12 toward Manchester and DeSmet. I knew we would have to punch the hook of the storm and warned everyone what we could find as we punched it. Sure enough, just west of Manchester a VERY LARGE tornado had just crossed the road about 300 yards in front of us. This tornado was very violent. As it ripped the town of Manchester apart, we sat in awe as the tornado dropped tons of debris all over the countryside. It moved north of Manchester and continued to be a violent tornado (rated F4) as it went through a long rope stage. Finally it roped out as we decided to head towards DeSmet. Another multivortex tornado quickly formed after yet another occlusion and stayed on the ground for 4 minutes. Finally, northwest of DeSmet the last and very photogenic tornado occurred and last nearly 15 minutes!!! What a day!!!!!
June 11th, 2003 Lyman, SD Supercell
June 11 took me to South Dakota for another promising day. The conditions this day were similar to June 9 which produced several tornadoes, however the models were consistent in bringing a bit less moisture to the region. This would be the big factor this day in my mind why we did not get a tornado to form. Cloud bases were too high for any significant tornado development. However the storm was a beautiful supercell and had wonderful structure. It produced 3″ diameter hail, several funnel clouds and intense lightning.
July 26th, 2001 Arapahoe County, CO Tornado
July 26 was a day with good possibilities for eastern Colorado. Decent shortwave energy was present, along with good instability and the DCVZ boundary setting up in eastern Arapahoe and Adams counties. I headed out the door shortly after lunch with a target to get under developing thunderstorms near the Byers area. Upon arrival just east of Byers, a nice cell had developed and was racing northeast rapidly away from me. Another cell was developing southwest of town, and this cell was the one I targeted. By 2 PM, a nice bell shaped, candy cane striated mesocyclone developed on the eastern side of the storm. Soon, rapid rotation was evident. At 2:28 Pm the tornado touched down and stayed on the ground for over 10 minutes. Overall a very nice storm and I fortunately got the results I had hoped for.
