2011-05-30 REPORTS: SD

[Josh VandenTop]

We started out targeting near Tyndall, SD and ended up waiting near Pickstown, SD. We watched the storms fire on radar in Nebraska and made the decision that we were going to stay in SD and wait for the storms to cross the river. We first intercepted a storm southwest of Avon, SD where we got some nice structure and eventually a possible brief tornado west of Avon (there appeared to be rotation above it). We then followed that storm for awhile and as it died out we stopped for a moment to decide what to do next, we were leaning toward going back to the border to wait for annother storm to cross but the storm to our north and west caught our eye. We caught it near Parkston and then worked on keeping out position on it, we ended up getting across the James river and headed north to Clayton where we got on an gravel road going east, this is where things happened for us. First a tornado formed just off the road to our north roughly a 1/2 mile away(unfortunately for me I apparently forgot to hit record so my video doesn't have this one, luckiy the other guys that were with did get some footage of it) as this was happening a very large tornado formed to our south. We tracked this one for several miles. Our gamble to stay north payed off big for us on this day, at one glance there were roughly half a dozen chasers that ended up near our storm. Here is some of the video I got from the day.Watch video >

 

[jshields]

MODS: please add Nebraska to this thread!

I unfortunately had a pretty crappy chase partially due to bad road network, bad internet coverage, and a horrible time trying to find a gas station!! I originally targeted Broken Bow, NE, but left Omaha late by about 45 minutes. I was hoping this wouldn't cost me and the storms would hold off but of course they didn't. The initial storms that fired and kept refiring were up near Brewster. I headed north towards Taylor and then west towards Brewster. As I was heading west I could see a nice lowering and what looked like a wall cloud forming to my north. This was the storm that went on to produce the tornado near Rose. The only way to go north though was to backtrack to 183. I attempted this but realized the storm was going to get away from me. I figured I might as well wait along 183 for the next storm to move through. However, I was getting low on gas. Back when i first came into Taylor from the south, I somehow didn't notice the OPEN gas station that was about 1 mile south of town and my garmin didn't even show it existed. When i started looking for a gas station, I didn't find one in Taylor, so I ended up all the way north in frickin Bassett, having to drive through the severe line of storms. This "detour" to get gas cost me easily near an hour and half. I made it back down to Taylor and met up with a friend, who of course was waiting at the gas station, but by now the line was overtaking 183 all the way south towards the interstate.
Here's where the fun started. I knew we would be in the line forever as we headed south, so we made a turn to the east towards Ord. The road was winding though and the line was picking up speed so it took forever to get out in front of the line. We managed to get out in front right in Ord, and as we came out on the other side of town, I saw the largest gustnado I have ever seen! For a while i swore I could see a broad lowering and a "nipple" like funnel(kindof reminded how the Aurora tornado started out), but I'm not sure. Apparently right after we left Ord, an 83 mph wind gust came through and damaged the airport.
We were riding the gust front again, struggling to get out in front of it. Finally we had to stop briefly in the town of Fullerton. We stepped out of the car and it was warm and humid again. No longer than a minute later though the cold air and winds slapped us in the face and we knew the squall line that was warned for winds up to 90 mph caught us again. This time though we had to head south on Hwy 22/14. About 5 miles or so down the road, I suddenly saw a HUGE power flash to my right up ahead. I began to worry whether there was a possible tornado that had spun up. Soon the winds picked up like crazy and visibility went down to about 100 feet in blowing dust. Then there was another power flash in about the same spot as last time! We reached our east road, Hwy 92, and headed on. The insane winds continued though, and suddenly out of nowhere there was about a 6-8 ft branch lying across the center of the road. At this point it was dark, so I had little time to react and drilled the end of the branch with my left tire as i swerved to the right. Luckily, it didn't do any damage to my car or tires. A little bit after that, there was a grove of trees on the north side of the highway. As we were driving through that area, the winds really picked up and suddenly tons of debris were flying across the road. I was waiting to get hit by a large branch or hit one lying on the road again, but made it through ok. At some point, after what seemed like forever, we made it back out in front of the line. My buddy stopped in Osceola at the gas station, but I kept on not wanting to get swallowed back up by the line. My friend did fall back into the line though, and told me that as they were driving down the highway they saw a couple of street signs get blown over by the wind. There were reports of 70-80 mph winds again with the line. I made it back home to Omaha, no more than 15 minutes before it hit my house, but by then the storm had weakened and the winds only gusted to about 45 mph at home. What a way to end what would have been one of my worst chases ever!

One other note: I'm 99% certain that about half of the tornado reports from yesterday were "just" gustnadoes. I'm sure there were tornadoes, but definitely not as many as were reported. There was even a report of 3 tornadoes on the ground at the same time by a sheriff, that is just screaming gustnadoes. also the SPC reports page had something like 5 duplicate reports of tornadoes that added to the number yesterday

 

[Bill Hark]

I started the day in York, Nebraska. There was the possibility of tornadoes and the SPC had outlooked a Moderate Risk for Central Nebraska into the Dakotas. I wasn’t happy with the orientation of the jet stream and the surface winds and that the predicted storms would quickly transition to a squall line. I wanted to target the tail-end storms in an area with more backing of the surface winds. The Dakotas were not in range since I had to be in Wichita the following day for a flight home. Storm motion would also be a problem. After reviewing forecast model data and focusing on precip data, I decided to target north-central Nebraska just to the northeast of a surface low. I drove west then north to the town of Ord. Dave Lewison, Scott McPartland, Chris Kridler, Daniel Shaw, Mark Robinson and the Canadians also targeted the same area and we met at a truck stop in Ord. This would also be the last chase days for the Canadians and for Chris. We all waited and watched satellite maps of Nebraska for development. A tornado watch was issued for our area. Soon, a diagonal line of cumulus was visible just to our west. When a couple areas of cumulus appeared more agitated along the line, we quickly drove northwest to Burwell and continued west through Taylor.We could see storms exploding to our southwest. These would move rapidly to the north, and we wanted to be on them early. Near the town of Brewster, we could see the dominant storm rapidly growing. Unfortunately, the storms were also becoming a north-south line. The surface winds were also not backing as much as I had expected. We watched our targeted storm as it approached us and passed us to the north. There were now additional storms to our south that would pass by to our west as they moved north. The road network was terrible and there was no way we could follow the storms northward and have escape routes. Just to our north, our initial storm developed signs of rotation and it became tornado-warned farther to the north as it crossed 183 and as it headed toward Atkinson. It was moving north-north east at 50 miles per hour. Although we couldn’t catch our initial storm, we hoped that other storms in the line would take the same amount of time to intensify. We headed southeast, then north on 183. Our northward progress was blocked by additional storms. Where our initial storm had crossed 183, there were hail stones that still measured 2 ½ inches in diameter after melting for over 30 minutes. Several chasers had their windshields damaged. We played with the hail and waited for additional storms to pass by to our west. We couldn’t go farther north or east due to the poor road network. Several of the storms to our west showed signs of rotation but we couldn’t get safely close enough to investigate. We dropped a bit south as the northeast to southwest line of storms slowly shifted toward us. The motion in the clouds was intense and we saw several brief funnels in the swirling clouds. Meanwhile, on radar, we could see that our initial target storm was nearing Atkinson and had a nasty hook echo. Any chaser approaching from the east would have a nice safe view of the storm crossing the road. With the northern route completely blocked and no east options, we headed south and stopped for fuel at a gas station in Taylor. It was packed with chasers including Silver Lining Tours, and The Weather Channel’s “Great Tornado Hunt†entourage. After a bit of a wait for gas and bathrooms, we decided to go our separate ways. The Canadians had to start driving back to Ontario and Chris was going to drive back to Florida. I also had to get back to Wichita. Only Dave and Scott had more days of chasing. After saying our goodbyes, I drove east. There was a massive squall line to the west with embedded mesocyclones. There was a slight potential for tornadoes but one would have to get too close and they would likely be wrapped in rain and hail I drove through Burwell and southeast to Ord. Since there was still some daylight left, I decided to get another look at the raging squall line to the west. I drove back west and could see a black and brown wall of clouds to the west. Clouds of dust were being kicked up by the outflow. Just south of Loup City, I did see a brief gustnado. Unfortunately it died before I could get the camera on it. I had to retreat east as the squall line was accelerating and gaining on my position. In the town of St. Paul, they were sounding the tornado siren at approximately 9:05 CDT and the area was hit with swirling dust and debris. From the radar, it was either hit with a gustnado or a downburst. I was annoyed because the tape had run out on my dashcam and didn’t get video. I blasted east, barely staying ahead of the massive storm. My progress was interrupted when I was pulled over by one of Nebraska's finest who let me off with a warning and a thank you for being out and observing the storms. It was getting dark. When I reached 83, I turned south and arrived in York a few minutes before the arrival of the squall line. I didn’t want to drive south in a north-south line of storms and decided to get dinner at a truck stop and let it pass. After I was behind the line, I headed south on 83. The lighting on the back side of the storm was amazing. Lacy flashes pulsated across the sky from different directions. Sometimes they looped toward me, other times, they directly hit the ground. As I wanted to get back to Wichita, I didn’t bother taking pictures and just enjoyed the show. I arrived in Wichita around 4AM and was able to get a couple of hours sleep before packing to come home.

http://www.harkphoto.com/053011approach1.jpg
Storms approaching 183 from the southwest

http://www.harkphoto.com/053011hailstone1.jpg
Hail along 183 after it had melted for over 30 minutes


http://www.harkphoto.com/053011gasline.jpg
Gas line in Taylor during massive chaser convergence

Bill Hark