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

[Martin Kucera]

South Dakota Supercell...

 

[Mick McGuire]

South Dakota

Watched the long-lived tornado (~30 minutes) southwest of the Badlands National Park within the park for around 30 minutes with Mr. Blair, Mr. Deroche and Mr. Pietrycha. The storm was beautiful as we followed highway 44 to 73 then north to Kadoka. The storm was racing east and we were lucky enough to be in Murdo when strong winds along the leading edge of the gust front (~70 mph +) resulted in one person loosing their back window. Road signs were seen flying through the air briefly. A few pictures are attached...

 

[Adam Lucio]

Hey cdcollura, see the van all the way on the left in your last pic? Yea thats me. Ive got video of that! I was on the same storm all day as well, along with the mass convoy of other chasers, Saw the Kyle Tornado while we were heading west in I-90, reported it on spotter network around 3:15, very beautifull storm!

I also saw and recorded that large gustnado, I observed and recorded rotation in the clouds and in the dust on the ground level, but do believe it was a gustnado myself.

 

[Brian Stertz]

A bit of success this day in reaching t-warned supercells...the main problem was that they failed to rupture the cap...and therefore remained outflow dominant pos. LL shear was not fully realized and moisture was not nearly as deep as one would associate with early June... and this kept these supercells from reaching their full potential. I technically cannot claim this as a bust. Certainly was no surprise the triple pt. validated a tornado but it too eventually had some serious troubles as well. The whole day was a major disappointment for a June event, and was tremendously out of phase. Pics will be posted sometime tomorrow (Sunday) now that I am back in KC.

 

[Wesley Luginbyhl]

Not the day I hope for but it atleast ended with us seeing a couple storms. We ended up north of Broken Bow, NE and had a gustnado track right next to us. That road network in NE gets really spotty at times.

 

[Michael O'Keeffe]

Here are some video stills from the tornadic supercell in SW SD.

 

[Scott Olson]

Full report at: HERE

 

[cdcollura]

Full Chase Log For June 6, 2007 Available

Good day,

I finally revised and finalized my chase log for June 6, 2007 in South Dakota and it is as follows...

Forecast models consistently pointed out the severe weather possibility from about 5 days prior to it actually occurring, and verification (it actually happening) was right-on for June 6-7, but not for June 9-10. On June 5, I left Dayton, OH just before 3 PM EDT and headed west on I-70 to Indianapolis, then northwest on I-65 to I-80 south of Chicago.

The initial target was June 6 in North-Central Nebraska and possibly SW South Dakota, so Interstate 80 was taken through Iowa and Omaha, NE then west for the night stayed in York, Nebraska. This first "ferry" trip was about 840 miles from (Dayton to York) and arrival in York was about 1:30 AM CDT.

On June 6 I forecasted and looked at a primary target near Winner, South Dakota with a stop in Valentine, Nebraska. This region was ahead of a dryline bulge developing in response to lee surface cyclogenesis under a region of strong diffluent winds aloft. According to the Storm Prediction Center (SPC), a moderate risk area stretched from SW SD through central SD and southward into central Nebraska. A 10% tornado, 45% hail, and 45% damaging wind probability was set for the moderate risk, all hatched denoting probability of a significant severe weather event for all three probabilities.

After leaving York, NE, I continued west on Interstate 80 to Grand Island and highway 281 to go north, then stair-stepped northwest through Nebraska's sandhills region along highways 95, 11, and 20 until in Valentine, Nebraska. A large "chaser convergence" was taking place in Valentine, as other chasers were assessing where the first storms will develop. Met up with Verne and Michael Carlson, Mike O'Keefe, Amos Magliocco, Eric Nguyen, Tony Laubach, Jim Reed, and others. On visible satellite, some cumulus was noted developing in south to southwestern South Dakota so we mobilized, and headed north on Highway 83 into SD.

While heading north on Highway 83 we (Verne Carlson, Mike O'Keefe, and myself were caravanning) noticed a cell developing to our west. This was the start of a "beacon" supercell storm attracting chasers from miles around! We headed west on Highway 44 towards Wanblee, South Dakota in the Big Pine Indian Reservation. While approaching the supercell storm, a tornado was observed from a distance on this supercell storm's updraft region. The tornado was also observed stopped from atop a hill in Wanblee. This tornado (Shannon County) lasted roughly 25 minutes, and its latter life cycle was observed from near Wanblee from a distance of roughly 10-15 miles.

The supercell storm evolved to HP mode, then an extremely intense bow segment afterwards, warranting a hasty retreat back along Highway 44 to Highway 73 then north to Kadoka, SD then east on Interstate 90. Another possible tornado, although highly precipitation-wrapped, was observed southwest of Kadoka along highway 73. There were nearly 100 storm chasers in this area, including the TIV (Tornado Intercept Vehicle) and DOW (Doppler On Wheels) research teams. Semis were also blown over on I-90 from the 70-80 MPH outflow winds as the storms went to a bow-segment. When continuing east on Interstate 90, the previous storms weakened and attention focused towards another round of storms developing near the dryline bulge to the southeast. The chase headed to Highway 183 to Winner, SD then south to near Basset, Nebraska.

The second round of storms quickly developed but into a line of storms by dark. I wrapped up the day by heading east on Highway 20 to Highway 137 to go north, then Highway 12 to take Highway 281 back north into South Dakota. I met up with Tony Laubach, Eric Nguyen, and Amos Magliocco for the night's stay in Wagner, South Dakota along Highway 46.

Pictures for June 6, 2007 are below...

Above - Tornado to SW of Wanblee Indian Reservation (SD).

Above - Storm supposedly was producing a rain-wrapped tornado at this time in the SD Badlands.

Above - My chase vehicle and amazing structure of storm mesocyclone (banding) overhead.

Above - Dust!! Storm gusts out east of Murdo with raging gust front.

My full chase log with storms for June 6 and June 7 can be found at the link below...

http://www.sky-chaser.com/mwcl2007.htm#JUNE5

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

http://www.extremeinstability.com/07-6-6.htm

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

Went out and chased north of Kearney near Broken Bow with Darren Addy. I was the pessimist, sure that the cap was firmly in place, Darren was the optimist, who really thougt it'd break. Boy was he right -- when that outflow boundary kissed the receeding dryline, it went from clear skies to 200 mile long severe squall line in roughly 15 minutes. Pics, and account here:

http://backingwinds.blogspot.com/2007/06/broken-bow-stormchase.html

BTW, I finally discovered what it's like to be overrun by a haboob. Short answer: damn dusty!

 

[Andrew Khan]

This perhaps is a late report, but I sense it is worth it. I rendezvoused with Bob Hartig, in southern Chicago, Illinois. We drove from 11:00 PM until 5:00 or 6:00 AM (staying awake all the while). I on the other hand had to drive from east Tennessee all the way to that location prior to this. We met up with Derek and Bill Oosterban in Davenport, Iowa at the "SUPER IOWA 80 TRUCK STOP". After all of us intensely studied, we all deduced a location that would be appropriate for initiation. This location was in north central Nebraska. We sat in the city drove all the way from Davenport, Iowa to Newport, Nebraska. This location was in fact optimal, but as all chasers do; the current conditions lure them away from there original perfect location with some nice looking single cell storm on XM, which turns out to be nothing and draws you many, many miles away from your target origin. Chasers, think these storms are part of the convection in the initiation area, when in fact they are nothing but junk storms firing off of earlier MCS's. Always stick with your original target location. We sat here, and let a few friends rest/sleep to regain reality and consciousness. Eventually in this location dust haze started developing from consistent blowing dust, very strong winds inducing this. As we sat at a 10% ethanol gas station, we saw extreme dust and dirt blowing throughout the landscape. It turned the sky a grey color, dirty color. All of us feared this would inhibit visibility and CAPE later on in the day. The farms, homes and establishments were hardly visible because of all the blowing dust.

Convection was starting to fire off in the southern South Dakota regime, Oglala to be specific. The "chasers conviction" was so strong, and magnetic, that we could no longer be patient in our current location. I wish we could have go west to Kadoka, where the convection was better around the badlands, and the scenery and view would have been better. In fact, I truly digress as, a tornado was produced there. We went after these small storms, in Oglala heading north from Nebraska. While driving along the way we observed what appeared to be vigorous gustnadoes, along what we thought to be the warm front. Seeing as, we were tracking straight ahead of the warm front. We pulled off along a country road and observed vigorous rotation that was hard to discern in person whether or not if it was connected to a cloud base. My instinct was it was a land spout, as I was sure I saw some cloud movement and a connection. All of us decided it would be cool to stick around, since it was heading straight for Bill's white Suburban. It was strong, and we saw it develop from at least one half a mile away. It progressed towards us, tearing up the dirt road, slinging gravel and rocks through the air, along with copious amounts of dirt. Then, it finally hit. I had my Canon Digital Rebel XT out with a wide angle 10-22 mm lens on it, and was slung around my neck along the neck strap, I could not take any further pictures of the experience. The wind was up to at least 80 Miles Per Hour. I could barely stand for the brief five seconds. Along this time, I got a little scared when I looked up and saw rotation and decided to jump in the car, however I had to pry open the door with all of my strength, my eyes full of mud and rocks. Bob, well he stood outside the whole time and experienced it all, without the aspect of having a 900$ piece of property attached to his body. I felt as though I was getting sand-blasted, my face was hurting. I finally got in the car, and the whole car was shaking. We left in awe and saw another, taller red landspout/gustnado go up quickly. It deteriorated quickly, ergo we did not have any time to pull over and photograph it. We arrived along the midway point to Oglala, and somewhere further northwest sliding up and down muddy dirt roads, dodging Pheasants, Turkey, Quail and Jackrabbits crossing the road like darts.

All that we were rewarded with for crossing into South Dakota was a beautiful anvil, and a sunset going down behind an occluded front.

Instability was moderatly high, around 3500 J/KG, moderate risk, high tornado potential (signatures) (percentages), LCLS great, balanced Theta E's, Helicity, appropriate winds, vertical velocities were optimal as well.