Struggling lone cell near Pineland, SC where (you guessed it) pine trees are prevalent. Supercells were everywhere else this day. Struggling lone cell near Pineland, SC where (you guessed it) pine trees are prevalent. Supercells were everywhere else this day.
Nice HP supercell developed ~40mi from my location after cyber-chasing the long-lived tornadic supercell that passed north of Charleston, SC. Plenty of 1.5" stones observed from 2126-2130 EDT 1mi NE of Hardeeville, SC.
Chased southeast of Sterling, CO. Observed several strong outflow waves from high-based cells and one decent gustnado. Saw better structure later on as upper support improved briefly.
Chased lone cells north of Yuma to Wray, CO. Nothing terribly photogenic as weak shear maintained pulse-like behaviors.
Chased the sfc low near the Bismarck area from 1730-2215L. Observed a handful of rotating storms and a few persistent CL supercells. The grand finale was a highly electrified tail-end Charlie over Bismarck just past sunset - incredible lightning!
Chased the sfc low once again, this time north of Devils Lake. The cap was stronger today, but the moisture convergence eventually won out. Observed a nice, albeit brief, LP supercell west of Starkweather. This cell nearly made it into the Great White North before calling it quits. Another cell blew up further southeast, but didn't last much longer. Later, I stopped just south of the border crossing to watch mammoth MDT Cu explode into probable supercells ~80mi into Manitoba. No border hopping for me today!
Chased upslope flow along NM/CO border. Lone cell slowly organized and became SVR east of Raton, NM before going HP west of Kenton, OK. An upstream cell interacted with the outflow boundary from the initial cell and wasted no time organizing. Aside from occasional cyclonic shear along the boundary and inflow interface, I didn't see much cloud base rotation during its lifecycle despite some rotation within. I chased this supercell from west of Boise City, OK to west of Stratford, TX observing some great structure and an awesome sunset. What a day after an exhaustive morning start from North Platte!
Drove towards the KC metro area so group members could prepare for return home. Morning hopes of strong instability across the Eastern 1/3 of KS I-70 corridor were shunned by persistent cloudiness and -SHRA. Later, I observed sub-severe nocturnal convection in Trego Cty, KS while driving west for Sunday's potential upslope.
Decent upslope flow, but weak speed shear yielded mutlicells east of Denver. I should have gone with the further target near Cheyenne where a morning outflow boundary supported a supercell this evening.
Chased HP supercell from near Miles City to northwest of Terry. Observed two rotating wall clouds occlude and dump hail up to baseball size. Some grapefruit hail hit SW of Miles City earlier on while 70+kt winds drove ~3" hailstones in Miles City causing widespread damage.
Video link of strong gustnado (2MB, 18sec).
Nothing too photogenic other than a brief, compact cell west of Lawton that developed two inflow streamers. Several segmented cells ensued afterwards and produced some 3/4" hail at best south of OKC. One car spun out on I-35 near Purcell due to hyrdroplaning. Sadly, this may have been the highlight of the chase! Photos of cell and squall line forthcoming.
Spring chasing completed. I'll do my best to jump on any decent setups in the next month or two, but for now I need a break and some beer!
July 19: Hard
Bust in Northwest IA
Two days prior to this chase,
I was so excited about Wednesday and Thursday's potential that I bought
a plane ticket to fly out for a mini chase. The cap would certainly
be a factor, but I couldn't resist the chance to chase after a rather quiet
July so far across the Northern Plains. In a nutshell, I conceded
defeat just after 1900 CDT while southwest of Milford, IA as the cap held
firm - almost too firm considering a band of virga had moved through and
no changes occurred! Since I'm so ticked off about this day, I'll
do a short write-up in the future about today's INCREDIBLE supercell and
tornado potential (MDT per SPC) and why no sfc-based convection fired.
This bust rang eerily similar to my Aug 2001 chase in IA as well...sigh.
July 20: Marginal
Rotating Storm in Northeast CO
Ideally, the whole purpose of
this short trip was to capitalize on back to back days of chasing.
Well day one was a bust and this day the upslope potential in WY was quickly
becoming a dream as monsoonal clouds wrapped around the upper ridge preventing
any good sfc heating. I drove from O'Neill, NE to Merriman, NE and
then south and west to Cheyenne, WY as convection fired along the terrain.
I passed on the cells west of Cheyenne for a more organized cell in Northeast
CO at the time. Bottom line, I missed a nice supercell north of Cheyenne
but did see a circular cell show off a non-rotating wall cloud just southeast
of Greeley, CO. Earlier on, I stumbled upon the CIRA/CSU facility
while looking for a scenic road to photograph a SVR cell on the front range!
Later this evening, multicells exploded south of Sterling with decent hail,
frequent CGs and tons of SVR outflow w/rain. A disappointing mini
chase overall, but tough days like these should only make the next chase opportunity
more enjoyable.
Pictures of today's storms forthcoming.
September 15: Funnels, Supercells and Possible Tornado in Southern NE
September 16: Tornadic Supercells in Southeast SD and Southwest MN
Unless otherwise noted, all photos © Copyright 2006 Matt Ziebell