06/06/07 REPORTS: SD / WY / NE

[Michael Carlson]

Saw the tornado near Kyle, SD before the whole storm went bow echo and outflow, after that we saw tons of gustnadoes and other spin-ups on the shelf cloud. Nice lightning show after dark too!

 

[Shane Adams]

Didn't see any tornadoes but found a really cool bar in Mitchell, SD. In a few more beers I may go harrass the F5 tour group, who's across the way from us. Looking at a SE KS/NE OK target for tomorrow.

 

[Amos Magliocco]

Eric and I observed the Badlands tornado for the last ten minutes or so of its lifespan. We observed it from about 10e of Martin, SD on SR 18 when the tornado was between Porcupine and Kyle. Like a few others, we were also farther away than we'd have preferred and we'll see what shows up on the video. Others have reported this tornado lasted more than thirty minutes. Robert Hall and Tony Laubach chased with us this afternoon also.

We were surprised at the init location and rapid maturation of the storm into a tornado producer, as well as how quickly the precip blob behind it ruined the show.

Almost more interesting than the tornado was the large, long-lived gustnado we observed on Highway 44 1m wsw of White River (see Tony Laubach's report on spotternetwork), which tore branches from trees and blew into a small valley, carrying a vortex of small debris into the community of White River itself where the gustnado intensified into a tall column of swirling gray dust. Had we located a circulation overhead, might have a taxonomy question, but we observed no evidence that this was anything but a stout little whirl along the leading edge. I suspect my gustnado video will prove more interesting than what I shot of the Porcupine tube.

I'll amend this post later with more details and a link to video or imagery. Time for bed now as we intend an epic drive tomorrow for tail-end Charlie.

 

[Michael O'Keeffe]

We also saw the Kyle, SD tornado, but from a very far distance..sigh. We could see it on the video, but it's really not very good. The storm itself was amazing, it spun like crazy as it moved slowly towards us. Then when it went outflow dominat, we had fun going in and out of the outflow. It was a gustnadofest we saw many gustnadoes including one that hit us. Will post pics and videos when we get back home. Now it's time for sleep before we make the drive to SE KS.

 

[Dan Robinson]

We slowly made our way west from Lincoln early in the morning, not wanting to commit to the distant SD triple point. We spent the better part of the day from York to Grand Island watching and shooting the cool 'mini haboob' dust storms and any other large objects that the wind decided to push around, including 18-wheelers, shopping carts and a plastic pool. Picked up some decent video.

Got a hotel room in Grand Island by late afternoon, keeping one eye on the Cu field out west. When it finally started firing, we jumped to west of Broken Bow to find high-based junk at sunset. Saw a few ill-defined lowerings, but all sending out cold outflow. Made it back to the hotel before midnight.

 

[kenny_allen]

Kory Hartman, the Keloland TV chase team, and I made our way out to Murdo, where we witnessed a gustnado. Apparently, it took out another spotter's back window. We had a few things trying to form some funnels, but always went right back up.

Ran into Roger Hill and 4 vans from Colorado in Mitchell, SD. Lots of chase groups out today in South Dakota.

Back home in Madison, SD this evening, where it is raining and windy. Not much of a show today but we did get to see some very cool lightning after dark and some great structure.

 

[Josh Richardson]

Short version of our chase as we are still on the road heading back to Northern IA. We made a late decision to go after the Badlands cell while we were all the way back in NC/NE Nebraska and made it to there around the Murdo area, as stated by others it was very outflowish at the time. Got a few pics from about 5 NW of White River and must have been after the gustnadofest. Watched it for a short time and realized the dryline back into Central NE was starting to fire so we flew all the way back towards the O'Neill area to see if we could intercept right around sunset as that would be the closest we could get and the SD stuff was getting very uninteresting. Made it to the O'Neill area just in time to catch the linear action and more strong winds and small hail but that was about it.

Here are the pics from 5 NW of White River SD...

 

[Adam Atkins]

Simon Brewer, Aaron Ruppert, and myself observed the Kyle, SD supercell develop from high based cu to sculpted LP to classic w/ tornado to outflow dominant wind beast. Shame the tornado was so far from any good observation points, but long-lived nonetheless...I probably have the worst video ever (the one day I decide not to bring my tripod). Hit by a strong gustnado in Murdow after the storm gusted out and the Shell station we were at nearly lost its overhang and people were running for cover everywhere.

Sleeping in York, NE tonight and will head south/southeast tomorrow.

 

[Olivier Staiger]

spectacular tornado

Gene Moore directed me ( I drove, he navigated) to this VERY nice tornado today, a few miles west of Allen, SD

more of my images here :

http://klipsi.blog.tdg.ch/general/25-minutes-de-bonheur-.html


we saw it for about 25 minutes or so.

 

[Chris Hayes]

We got a late start yesterday, but were able to intercept the first storm that developed in Custer County, NE. Didnt see the "tornado" that was associated with it, but did see a wall cloud and some really pretty rain free base. I'll post pictures sometime today after I upload them to my laptop.

 

[Edward Ballou]

Bust - was too far east. Made it south to Winner and met up with the storms west of there but it was a shelf by then. Saw some small gustnado spinups in the distance and some dust getting kicked up. Saw Tim Samaras and his crew heading east on I-90 from Presho. Followed a cell that went from Chamberlain to Huron but it died pretty quickly so we "enjoyed" a buggy ride home. Roughly 505 miles travelled. Full account and all pictures will be on my website tonight sometime.

EDIT: Full account now up on my website.

 

[George Grant]

Atkinson cell

Target: O'neill. Arrived there around 5:00pm and decided much wasn't going on. Saw what appeared to be a tuft of cu go up in Garfield county and dropped south on US281 to intercept. I figured this would be the discrete cell of the day. It dissipated as I drove to it.
By the time I got back to O'neill, a line had quickly erupted from about North Platte to Ainsworth. I drove west on US20 to Atkinson and dropped south from there on NE11. Drove by an SUV whose owner had spent a fortune on antennas. Picked up a wall cloud a few miles south. Followed it back to Atkinson as they blew the sirens there.

 

[afischer]

Changed my target last-minute to the retreating dryline near Broken Bow, as I just didn't have enough confidence in SD. Left KC at 11am and got there by 5pm. Forecast worked rather well, as surface flow backed to 160 degrees by 00Z from Arnold down to McCook and the dryline sloshed back west. As I was between Arnold and Gothenburg, a storm developed nearly overhead out of a batch of mushy virga (strong large scale ascent accompanying the mid- and upper-level jets). It never could get its act together (nondescript and elevated) and raced NE at 55kts. Intercepted a new, tornado-warned tail-end charlie storm along the occluding dryline north of Broken Bow. It was clearly saying "help me, I have no moisture whatsoever to work with" and was undercut by raging outflow. Some neat gustnadoes moved out ahead of it across the hilly landscape. Another highlight of the trip was the ridiculous southerlies en route to my target, and near-zero visibility at times in blowing dust along I-80.

 

[Randy Halverson]

I was south of Kadoka, SD yesterday on that big storm. About the time this pic was taken was when the rain wrapped tornado was reported, but I couldn't see it from my position. Saw a few gustnados and a lot of wind while trying to stay in front it while going east on I-90.

 

[Verne Carlson]

Wanted to add to Michael's opening post that after we photographed the tornado up in the Badlands we shot down the initiating line in NE and got to the tail end near Broken Bow, NE and got a great light show from the highly electrified towers. Was a great end to the day and quite a site to see.