2012-05-22 REPORTS: ND

[Skip Talbot]

Caleb Elliott, Phil Bates, and I took a Cessna 182 up to north central North Dakota to do some aerial storm chasing. We left from the KC area that morning, making fuel stops in Yankton, SD and Bismarck, ND, before heading north for the intercept. We got on the storm just after the initial funnel cloud report and noted a large gust front fanning out from the storm. No problem to chasers on the ground, we avoided flying under or through it due to heavy turbulence and stayed out ahead of the storm until it took on a more discrete structure. We noted a nice wall cloud, possibly a brief small funnel, and some gorgeous structure before heading back to Minot to land and get a room for the night. It was amazing seeing the storm from that perspective. The flight went off without hitch, all of our gear and planning worked out, and the bumps only made us moderately airsick! Thanks to Caleb for an awesome job behind the controls.

 

[Marcus Diaz]

So we ended the previous' day chase in northern NM near Wagon Mound, NM. It was me, Tony Propp, Brady Kendrick, and James Siler. Between us we all took turns driving through the night and this day to get to ND. We stopped north of North Platte to watch the sun rise over the Sand Hills. The storms on the horizon were already severe warned.

We were between Bismarck and Minot when the first storm blipped on radar. We continued through the cloud cover and caught first sight of our storm near Berthold, ND when the sun finally broke through.

As we approached from the east the storm had latched onto the warm front and gone bonkers. After this pic the storm dropped a brief tornado.

The storm tried cycling some more but once the cold front approached the storms began to die. We made our way to Jamestown, ND to get some much needed sleep. I've never traveled this much to chase but I still think it was awesome. Even though I didn't get much sleep at all. I was awake at from 8am Monday to 2am Wednesday, with only an hour nap in there. Also never been to ND so glad I got to see some of that action. Here's a couple more from that trip.

(the guys making a break for Canada, lol)

 

[Skip Talbot]

Finally wrote out a detailed log for this event and edited some video, along with photos, stats, and map with GPS track:

http://skip.cc/chase/120522/

Watch video >