05/02/06 DISC: Plains

[Jeff Miller]

Congratulations to Scott Olson for bagging the South Dakota tornado, and Brandon for his Texas catch...as well as others who have had success today.

Thoughts on today's situation and post analysis for northern targets and southern targets? Things really had a difficult time in the northern targets getting their act together... thats for sure. I believe Scott's supercell up north west of Brookings was really the only tornadic event of the day in these areas. Other storms in the watch box had real difficulty holding their own.

Looking forward to hearing conversation about both scenarios that panned out today in Tornado alley.

 

[BrandonWhittington]

Awsome cone that Jay shot in the Southeast Panhandles.........Congrads, and to all that made use of this is day. Congrats to all.

 

[Kurt Silvey]

I chased in nw IA yesterday and started on the very north cell as it moved out of SD and into IA. I positioned myself in between that cell and the next one to the s. The north cell was svr warned when it crossed into IA, but quickly fell apart as it ingested rain-cooled air. The problem these storms had was that they were tracking east and the upper level winds were blowing the anvil and rain to the se, so as each cell built back towards the sw they built up and intensified quickly, but as they moved east they would run into the cooled air from the previous cell and die. This was all happening right along the I-29 corridor. I have some nice pictures of the cells building in nw NE, se SD, even a very nice beaver tail and large lowering, but then they crossed over into the bad air and would fall apart in minutes,and generally turn into a junky mess. The cell up near Brookings didn’t have this issue, as the anvil was off to the ne on an easterly moving cell. Congratulations to Ed and Scott for the catch up north. I’ll try and get a report and pictures up later.

 

[Edward Ballou]

Congratulations to Ed and Scott for the catch up north.[/b]

I didn't bag that one --just Scott did. There might have been some other people around.

I got on it about 20 or 30 minutes late. It still produced some very nice features. I did notice a black van with what appeared to be a mesonet on top. Anyone know who that was? He was booking though. We decided to hold back and just watch the storm go by.

Still waiting for my first tornado... interesting to note that I have now had 10 logged chases with no tornados. Isn't that the statistic? I guess I'm due for one my next time out

 

[Aaron Kennedy]

Still waiting for my first tornado... interesting to note that I have now had 10 logged chases with no tornados. Isn't that the statistic? I guess I'm due for one my next time out
[/b]

Not really... I've had a span of ~20+ chases with no tornadoes. I think Roger Edwards? had a span of 50? (several years) with no tornadoes.

Aaron

 

[Edward Ballou]

Not really... I've had a span of ~20+ chases with no tornadoes. I think Roger Edwards? had a span of 50? (several years) with no tornadoes.
[/b]

I guess it's good that I like getting out there and just appreciating the weather. However I am considering weeping openly :lol:

 

[Scott Olson]

Hey guys thanks! Tornadoes wasn't my first thought when I saw the almost no precipitation and high based nature of the cell I was on. Not to mention the radar appearance was fairly poor - (though 55dbz core seemed to work it's way down the tilts prior to TG). At 8:30 a.m. yesterday I noticed some light/moderate showers extending from NW of Brookings down into SE SD, these would generally clear the area by 10:00am. It occured to me that this was probably a blessing in disguise as it would definately increase helicity and also kept the tempatures back just a bit- thus lowering LCL's (but also making us wait just a tad later for convective temp to be reached). I almost got drawn down to the southern boundary (with unison forecast of helicity and instability max over by Yankton at around 21z and intiation seemed pretty likely with sustained MCONVG) but the pooling of moisture E -NE of the low kept me farther north just long enough to see a couple radar scans which showed cells already merged with each other, no thanks. After another hour, I noticed 17.5dbz at BR3 from FSD radar I took off up I-29 and then went west towards the cell. Coming into visual I just wasn't impressed with it, the updraft was defined and seperated from the rather weak downdraft, but it was high-based, flat and there was little precipitation our outflow winds. As I got just a bit south to where blue sky illuminated the side of the updraft, I could see an incredible anvil and crisp slanted updraft that indicated to me that it was a decent supercell at the time. Then a cone like funnel appeared widend a bit and the surface circulation started. The condensation funnel appeared Cone at first and then more scorpion stinger during it's strongest phase and ended with the expected rope and lifting even though the surface was still launching dirt and such into the air.

Strangely, it was after the tornado lifted that a wall cloud came down and started rotating something ferocious, with fingers coming out pushing outwards towards the ground and then retracting. That lasted a couple minutes and the cell completely and totally fell apart. The same thing happend with the next cell to the north, which for about 30 minutes was an impressive little storm. It had a flanking line with a nice tilted updraft and an area of perfeclty rounded striated clouds at about 10kft- then the top shooting up. That cell looked more mini-sup than anything and had a much lower cloud base than the previous cell. In the instant that cell was no more either.