What a remarkable day this turned out to be. We were in O’Neill, NE overnight and decided to blast towards northwest South Dakota for what we hoped would be a nice high based supercell. And what a supercell it was! We spent some leisure time in Belle Fourche, SD waiting for things to happen. We spotted a tower to our north and blasted to the Buffalo area. When we arrived we witnessed a convective explosion!!! A gorgeous rock hard updraft formed and produced one of the most scenic supercells I have seen this year. This storm produced hail golfball sized and was tornado warned for two hours. We were witness to several funnels, but could never confirm any touchdown. Several times, the clear slot produced a nice wall cloud, only to be shrouded by rain and hail.
July 8th, 2003 Bell Forsche, SD Supercell
Limited moisture would destroy the possibility of a significant tornado on this day. Wonderful wind shear would be enough to get a couple intense supercells developing. One such storm developed in southeast MT and moved into western South Dakota. This supercell did everything it could to produce a tornado, but could not. However it did exhibit impressive structure. As night fell in South Dakota, this storm became an electrified monster.
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.
August 8th, 2002 Reva, South Dakota Tornadic Supercell
My last day out would be one of my favorite on this trip. A boundary was present from overnight convection across northern South Dakota into North Dakota. I decided to play where the winds were backed and the approaching short wave would intersect the boundary. By 2 PM a supercell rapidly developed along this boundary near Buffalo, South Dakota. This storm became a monster supercell and produced copious amounts of baseball sized hail and a small tornado just northwest of Reva, South Dakota. Then the first cell died as it crossed the boundary into North Dakota, and a second very nice HP supercell developed back over Buffalo.
June 23rd, 2002 Brown County, SD Cyclic Tornadic Supercell
I left Denver with my tour group headed for my target of Aberdeen at 6 AM. Nearly 850 miles later, we arrived. A nice warm front boundary/dryline intersection was very evident on NEXRAD from ABR. We sat there and waited, for a whole 45 minutes for storms to form. Towers went up on the triple point, but could not get into the deep moisture. The west side of the dryline temp and dews were 97/54 with a 240 wind at 20. East of the triple point temp and dews were 91/72 with a 170 wind at 15. North of the warm front temp and dews were 81/77 with a 80 wind at 15. Perfect set up!!! Not to mentions 50 kt 500 mb winds and SBCAPE of 5,500 j/kg. Around 6:30 PM an area of congestus managed to sustain itself south of Forbes, ND, and north of Leola, SD. A storm rapidly developed here. We blasted through the core to be greeted by a long beaver tail being inhaled by the updraft. I have NEVER seen such a beaver tail moving westward at such a rapid motion into the updraft before. It was incredible. The updraft had a low pregnant base with a gorgeous vault visible extending to the northeast. The storm was moving east. At 7:18 PM CDT, a dirt swirl appeared under a rapidly rotating base. By 7:20 PM a rather large tornado developed and crossed county road 23. This tornado had VIOLENT motion at the base and became a large dusty cone. As it moved east the meso took on a large perfectly round barrel shape as the tornado, now a wedge, continued east. At 7:50 PM it dissipated completely as an occlusion was clearly in progress.
At 7:50 PM, the second tornado developed about 2 miles northeast of the first and just northeast of my position. It was a beautiful white elephant trunk with inky black debris cloud. It quickly widened into a large stovepipe with a satellite tornado on its north side. A second satellite tornado developed to its west and roped quickly. We decided to get east of the tornado on highway 10, and to our surprise, it started moved southeast. We drove to the south of it as debris was falling on the vehicle. The tornado was only 200 yards to our north as the outer edges of the debris cloud engulfed our vehicle as we sped east of it. Too close a call for me!!! We stopped a half mile east and shot more video of this now large stovepipe, turning into a wedge. The sun lit the background orange as the black wedge bore down on our position. We headed east on a dirt road stopping to shoot continuous video, only to be chased back in our vehicle to escape. As we drove past a farmhouse a husband and wife were outside watching and waving us to stop and seek shelter.
The tornado, now visions of Pampa 95, bore down on their house. I only hope they made it to the basement in time as the violently rotating tornado headed directly for their house. We continued east and finally stopped for video to watch the tornado dissipate at 8:18 PM. We ran into Gene Rhoden and he quickly pointed out another rapidly developing tornado to the southeast of the previous one, on the ground at 8:23 PM. We dropped south 2 miles and headed east again as a beautiful grey elephant trunk developed with large debris cloud. Another satellite tornado developed on its southern side and lasted for 3 minutes before being swallowed by the now large wedge. This tornado dissipated at 8:36 PM. Finally a large stovepipe developed at 8:36 after another occlusion and was the most photogenic of all. The sun had come out under the barrel, striated updraft and this tornado was being blocked by the setting sun. What an awesome sight!!!!!!! It stayed in place until 8:54 when it finally roped out. All in all, 5 significant tornadoes, 3 satellite tornadoes and a landspout. This storm was one of the prettiest warm front cyclic supercells I have ever seen.
We went back to the NWS office in Aberdeen to share our video with them and to look at the damage survey they did. Clearly the last tornado was F4 or low end F5 (F4 officially) and several other tornadoes were F2 and F3. Fortunately the town of Barnard was spared as there would have undoubtedly been total destruction there. I received some incredible photos from Mr. Gene Olson of Barnard, South Dakota. They are very worth checking out. Click on this link to see them. They are awesome. OLSON TORNADO PHOTOS.
June 23rd, 2002 South Dakota Tornado Photos of Gene Olson
The photos contained on this page belong to Gene and Carrie Olson of the Barnard, South Dakota area. They are used with their gracious permission. These photos were taken on June 23rd during the Brown county South Dakota cyclic tornadic supercell. The large tornado heading for their farmstead fortunately dissipated just prior to a collision course with their farmstead. In one up close photo (4th from the bottom) you can even see yours truly in a white van heading away from the ever encroaching tornado. Another tornado, that went on to become an F4, is seen developing just east of their farmstead in the last 3 photos.
July 22nd, 2001 Faith, SD Tornadic Supercell
After chasing in northern plains with Rocky Rascovich (great chasing with you!!), my friend Dave Brown and I left eastern South Dakota headed west to a supercell coming out of Montana. As we approached the Mobridge, South Dakota area, we noticed a very long, fairly sharp anvil streaming to our northwest. The closer we got, the more I realized that this storm was something special. When we were about 20 miles east of Faith, we noticed a highly striated updraft that was very electrified. The lighting would light up the vault and reveal an awesome liberty bell shaped updraft that was obviously rotating. This storm had not one, but three inflow bands!!!!!! The updraft was moving just south of southeast, while the anvil was streaming almost due northward. As we got closer, about 20 miles from the updraft, we noticed a well formed wall cloud. At about 8 PM, a rather large cone tornado formed, with a nice tail cloud extending to the east. It stayed on the ground for 5 minutes before rapidly dissipating. As the updraft pushed to our east, we stayed behind it and watched an awesome CG show!!!
