4/24/09 REPORTS: IA

[jshields]

i went out with a buddy of mine today in westcentral and western iowa. we left omaha a little late around 5pm. the cumulus field developed basically right over us here in omaha, but a little after 4pm the front came through town. it was a toasty 91, so it was nice to get a cool nw breeze!! anyways i wasn't very hopeful for any tornadoes, because the dews were in the mid 50's, and there really wasn't alot of shear to work with either <30 kts, but i was itchy to get out so i took the day off of work anyways! we headed east on I-80 into western iowa. the towers were going up quickly at first, but had a hard time surviving before they would collapse on themselves. finally as we were approaching atlantic, iowa the storms were getting pretty strong and were filling in as a line trying to connect up to the storms that were already severe in northern iowa. we ran into very heavy rain and pea to marble sized hail along I-80 near atlantic, and just a bit later the first warning came out for those group of storms. there was a slightly stronger cell behind the first one and we let that come across us as well again with mainly marble sized hail. we noticed a stong cell at the end of the line back down near red oak, ia so we headed east a little bit to hwy 25 and then headed south to just north of greenfield, ia to let the last cell in the line pass over us. this was showing quarter sized hail or larger possible but it weakened slightly before it crossed us on the highway. we decided to head back west on hwy 92 towards omaha to intercept a cell that appeared to be rapidly strengthening about 10 miles west of greenfield. this ended up being the most impressive storm of the day as we ran into tons of hail along the highway about 5-7 miles west of greenfield. it hailed in 3-4 "rounds". the first round had near quarter sized hail and lasted several minutes, there was a brief lull before another round of marble or so sized hail came down. the third round we could actually see the hail curtain come right at us down the highway, and again we got blasted with quarter sized hail!! it was so cool to see this! finally after a brief break from the hail another bout of pea sized hail came through. we were stopped along side of the road easily for 15 minutes while all this hail came through. we missed the worst of the hail though, as grlevel 3 was showing 2.5" hail possible just south of the highway we were on. we chose not to find out if it really was dropping hail that big i'm pretty sure it was probably at least golf balls though. finally as it was nearing dark we went to just south of fontenelle, ia to take some good lightning pics. not a bad day, i would just like to see some tornadoes!! i'll have more larger pics on my blog soon!!

 

[Dan Melby]

Chased North Central Iowa and intercepted several high based outflow dominant cells. Witnessed several gustnado's and nickel sized hail. A fun chase for not expecting too much!
Full chase account here: http://corepunch-com.blogspot.com/

 

[Darrin Rasberry]

Got totally raked by a quarter-sized hailcore SW of Mason City for about five minutes straight. Absolutely loved this little chase, and will upload video of it in a compilation probably as May winds down. Craig's windows held up well.

 

[jshields]

i went out with a buddy of mine today in westcentral and western iowa. we left omaha a little late around 5pm. the cumulus field developed basically right over us here in omaha, but a little after 4pm the front came through town. it was a toasty 91, so it was nice to get a cool nw breeze!! anyways i wasn't very hopeful for any tornadoes, because the dews were in the mid 50's, and there really wasn't alot of shear to work with either <30 kts, but i was itchy to get out so i took the day off of work anyways! we headed east on I-80 into western iowa. the towers were going up quickly at first, but had a hard time surviving before they would collapse on themselves. finally as we were approaching atlantic, iowa the storms were getting pretty strong and were filling in as a line trying to connect up to the storms that were already severe in northern iowa. we ran into very heavy rain and pea to marble sized hail along I-80 near atlantic, and just a bit later the first warning came out for those group of storms. there was a slightly stronger cell behind the first one and we let that come across us as well again with mainly marble sized hail. we noticed a stong cell at the end of the line back down near red oak, ia so we headed east a little bit to hwy 25 and then headed south to just north of greenfield, ia to let the last cell in the line pass over us. this was showing quarter sized hail or larger possible but it weakened slightly before it crossed us on the highway. we decided to head back west on hwy 92 towards omaha to intercept a cell that appeared to be rapidly strengthening about 10 miles west of greenfield. this ended up being the most impressive storm of the day as we ran into tons of hail along the highway about 5-7 miles west of greenfield. it hailed in 3-4 "rounds". the first round had near quarter sized hail and lasted several minutes, there was a brief lull before another round of marble or so sized hail came down. the third round we could actually see the hail curtain come right at us down the highway, and again we got blasted with quarter sized hail!! it was so cool to see this! finally after a brief break from the hail another bout of pea sized hail came through. we were stopped along side of the road easily for 15 minutes while all this hail came through. we missed the worst of the hail though, as grlevel 3 was showing 2.5" hail possible just south of the highway we were on. we chose not to find out if it really was dropping hail that big i'm pretty sure it was probably at least golf balls though. finally as it was nearing dark we went to just south of fontenelle, ia to take some good lightning pics. not a bad day, i would just like to see some tornadoes!! i'll have more larger pics on my blog soon!!

i've updated my blog with more, larger pics!

 

[Michael Stanga]

Pictures:
http://www.thewxpage.com/042409chase.html

Video:
http://www.thewxpage.com/stormchasingvideo2009.html

Not a bad chase all things considered. The coolest thing was how the cu field was literally a few miles wide and clear to the northwest and south.

Got into a mini core of sorts with pieces of large hail but mostly pea sized stuff.

 

[Andrew Butler]

Dews failed miserably but this still was an extremely enjoyable warmup to the season. Nice to get out after a LONG winter and see storms again.

Fun video here if you're interested:
http://vimeo.com/channels/40328

 

[cstrunk]

My friend and I took off Friday afternoon for a fairly close chase. We left Ames at about 3 PM and headed north on I-35 towards Mason City. We stopped for data at the rest stop by Dows, IA. We continued north on the interstate until a few miles south of Mason City. We headed east to get a better view of the storms building to our north and west. We watched the same storm that others have posted pics on as it became severe warned. It had a really well defined rain/hail shaft and there was some nice lightning around. We never ventured into the storm to sample the hail. The storm became kind of messy and based on the advice of our nowcaster (Thanks, Bill Schintler!) we dropped south towards Hampton to view another severe warned cell. It was not as "impressive" as the first cell with similar structure. All of these storms were deprived of moisture. After watching it for a bit, we decided to head back towards Ames and drove through more storms along the way, treated with moderate/heavy rain and some close lightning.

I really need to practice lighting conditions with my camera more often. Not to mention upgrade my camera to something nicer with a bulb setting I could used for lightning. We stopped near a wind farm by Zearing, IA hoping to get some lightning strikes with the windmills in the background, but the storm was weakening and the strikes were too infrequent for my limited 16 second exposure time on my Kodak. I will return to that spot again sometime to try lighting with that background though!!

Fun chase to start the season, can't wait for the "real" storms to make their way farther north into Iowa later in the season so I can see something worthwhile next time...

I'll try to add some pics later.