Finally a day when good dewpoints and shear coincided!  I was expecting a long drive northeast of Bismarck this morning, but the morning data had changed for the better and it looked like I'd have plenty of time to get my flat tire repaired.  I hung around Bismarck much of the morning and then drifted westward to where a mesolow and triple point boundary were developing.  I recall having saw a broken stratus deck while approaching Richardton and decided to stick it out just east of there.  Here's the view looking east around 1530CDT at the cap giving way to the first TCu.  Even though this updraft is anorexic, I still get excited when these clouds first break the cap!

Ahh, looking better now.  Better girth to the updrafts as they finally anvil out.  1615CDT

A narrow LP storm developed to my SW and later became SVR while dumping its puny core NW of Mandan.  Another Cb was trailing to its SSW and by the looks of its base I had a feeling this would be around a little longer.  Here's the organizing base ~15mi west of Bismarck.

This cell was quickly rotating and shortly became SVR warned for hail.  I drove east into Bismarck, then north on HWY 83 to stay ahead of it.  During this time, it had spit out a left mover.  It also developed a couple low and mid level feeder bands and was producing occasional anvil CGs.  I chose to play it safe and stay inside my car watching the show from there.

This rotating cell never did make a turn to the east and as a result the FFD appeared to contaminate the inflow. Naturally, the structure went downhill after this shot; however, new convection was blossoming further south and I quickly departed this once promising cell.

Now east of Menoken, I'm treated to a highly electrified rotating storm that proceeded to develop a wall cloud close to I-94.  The rain was stirring up the mosquitoes so bad that I had a hard time keeping my window open long enough for stills.  This cell didn't last much longer after this shot as precip was now falling in all of its quadrants.

While aborting the latter cell, I looked south and saw a vivid inflow band to a tail-end Charlie located over Standing Rock Reservation.  I drove south on HWY 83 towards Moffit and pressed westbound.  Since this supercell was straddling the west edge of the MO River and given the limited river crossings, I stayed on the east side as the updraft became very columnar and electrified.

Video grab of the distant supercell around sunset.  Numerous chasers began to flock around this supercell as we all hoped it would go one step further.

Ancillary convection developed near the supercell and provided this colorful scene southeast of Bismarck at 2037CDT.  Quite a bit of CG activity here again, but thankfully not as many skeeters as before.

I'll have to check the radar archives, but this may have been a new supercell that developed just upstream of the earlier one.  This storm is skirting Bismarck with SVR hail and what would prove to be a fantastic lightning display.  2100CDT

Tons of lightning photo opportunities!  Here's a quick selection of some of my favorites.  The orange and red hues on the supercell's base are courtesy of the city lights below.  All these shots were taken looking up at about a 60 degree angle of perspective using various shutter speeds w/200 ISO.  No tornadoes today, but the structure and photo ops more than made up for that.

All photos © Copyright 2006 Matt Ziebell