5/1/08 REPORTS: IA/SD/NE/KS/MO/OK

[Van DeWald]

Called in the first tornado report south of Rock Valley around 650 pm in northwest Iowa. Here's a quick pic. It eventually grew to 1/2 mile wide and did damage. Came across a farmstead that was hit, but the house was OK. Still on the chase, more pics and vids later.

Van

 

[Jason McKittrick]

I left Omaha around 2PM, intercepted the triple point storm near Yankton. I briefly followed the Bon Homme Co cell as it looked like it might be the dominant one early on. Had to double back once the Yankton storm got its act together. I flanked the core to the NE and was able to avoid the tennis ball sized hail that I later saw littering the road between Irene and Hurley. After I was able to get to the southern flank of the storm I observed a violently rotating wall cloud. The circulation was rain wrapped. I was able to stay in the bears cage for about 10 miles. I witnessed and filmed two brief/weak touchdowns from about .75 mile away. Not a bad chase only spent ~$125.00 on gas.
Well Mike H., I guess I have some crow to eat later, tornadoes in SD and 72 dew in Ardmore, IMPRESSIVE.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Nice job Van. Wish I would have been over there, if only to not be in freaking rain the whole day.

Was on the se SD pretty long lived supercell from the start of its life till just w of Sioux Falls. I'm not sure I can remember seeing a storm cycle that many times always looking like it was about to get it done, then crash and get cold. I think I probably saw 5 good cycles, while missing several staying with it in its core. Core always contained hail, some fair sized, probably quarters with occasional golf balls. Not a terrible day, other than being made a fool of by the storm several times after saying, "it's certainly going to tube this time". It was amazing how fast it would decide to get organized. Also amazing was how intense the inflow would get once you edged north of due east of it. You'd be calm, then BAM you were back in strong ene winds.

For future chasers in this area....the bridge area south of Yankton is a MESS. Must have taken me 20 minutes to get 2 miles.

Anyway, congrats to all the others likely bagging today. Cool to see everyone got daylight storms.

 

[Damon Scott Hynes]

See what happens when your laptop crashes and all you have to depend on is NOAA radio?

I snuck into the Onawa, IA library, noticed the MD for the Norfolk/Sioux City area and figured I was in high cotton. Crossed the river at Decatur with an eye toward Norfolk, but when I noticed the winds turning from the SW and the radio told me Norfolk was already back to the 60s with 40-ish dews I pretty much figured I was screwed. Drove up to SUX to get back onto I-29 for home, saw the towers north of SUX. Didn't look that impressive and that was another hour north. Silly me .

Mike, I thought you'd be posting from La Crosse by now

 

[Jeff Miller]

Caught the Rock Valley, IA Tornado as well!

Checked visible satellite at 5:21 and left Sioux City. Headed NE on HWY 75, noticed a severe thunderstorm building to my northwest. Jigsawed on several roads back and forth..ended up in Hudson, IA. I moved North then on Chestnut (I believe) then turned right on 18. From there I saw the large dusty tornado. Toward the end of the life cycle, it was a nice white tornado from my vantage point. Roped nicely. I had to use a 35mm camera, it took 6 photos of the tornado, then messed up on the film advance. I hope the pics are still good.

I then drove into Rock Valley. Telephone poles, about 9 of them, snapped at the base and lying down on the ground. Power completely out, trees shredded with the classic "Tornado look". The damage didn't look horrific, but definately cut a fine path through the town. It took me 20-30 minutes to get out of the town due to traffic rerouting.

In the town I stopped at a convenience store with a group of 10-20 people who observed and videotaped the tornado. They got some great video and will be posting it on YouTube, they said. The whole town was out of power, traffic was a mess.

120 miles round trip, 1 Tornado. Not a bad chase day at all! I want to add this was a totally blind chase - using only visual cues. Not even a cell phone, and still nabbed a tornado. Wow!

 

[Van DeWald]

Jeff,

Here was the tornado as it roped out. It was gone in another 30 seconds. Total lifespan was about 40 minutes I think, if it was the same cell. Will have to check radar.

Unfortunately, I didn't have time to grab still pics during it's half-mile wide phase, but I do have video, and can grab a screen cap when I get home.

Was surprised to see this come out of the thundershowers that it did. I first saw what was a dust devil or landspout, and thought it was a plume of smoke. But it was moving. There were actually 2 landsputs at the same time, about 1/2 mile apart. But, the parent thundershower quickly grabbed ahold of one, and it instantly became attached the base of the updraft.

Here it is in dust devil form, beginning to become attached to the showers overhead.

Overall an impressive setup. I'm sure there will be some great pics from down south too!

 

[Chris Sokol]

OK...going to have to get a mod to update this thread title to include Oklahoma. Couldn't chase today due to work, so I stayed in Oklahoma City...and still got a tornado. Picked up the cell just south of Crossroads Mall (after punching through the hail, which was in excess of golfballs) and tracked it through Oklahoma County. Incredible structure, incredible motion, and one brief tornado. Great day, considering I wasn't planning on chasing at all!

 

[Mike Peregrine]

Congrats and nice work to the tube catchers out there today. Couldn't make up my mind where I wanted to go. Ended up heading SE of KC to Ottawa as initiation was underway. The northern cell over DeSoto ended up producing a spectacular hook on radar as it went through Wyandotte Co. (KCK). By that time I was settled into the hail and downdraft fest in Ottawa with quarter size, as I received reports of a tornado closer to my original target (east of STJ near Plattsburg). Decided to move east from Ottawa under clear air. Followed the storm through Spring Hill, just south of Olathe. Rotation would try to tighten up, but there were two cells competing and it would get screwed up every time it made an attempt. They finally merged after dark, which is when the more interesting stuff happened as the storm moved into the city. If I could sum up this chase in one word, it would be RAIN.

 

[Simon Brewer]

Was up near Stillwater waiting for a tower to explode to my SW and then a cell blew up near Norman, and I just couldn't resist... So I hauled it south and caught the storm near Jones, OK. Beautiful structure and 4+ inch diameter hail!!! I wish I would have stayed in my target; would have been on the Osage Co. cell, oh well...

Simon

 

[cstrunk]

My story is about the same as Mike Peregrine's, so I'll keep it relatively short.

Scott Bell and I departed from St. Joe, MO about 4:30 and blasted south through KC and watched the towers explode just to our west. We made it to Ottawa just before the first storm we were watching reached town. Observations pretty similar to Mike's. We drifted a little ways south while watching the storms begin to form into a linear mess. We watched several areas of interest, but nothing worthwhile could develop.

We meandered our way north, letting a tornado warned storm with rain-wrapped rotation pass by northeast of Spring Hill, KS. After that we called it quits and drove home.

I'd like to thank Scott again for letting me tag along for this chase. I had a lot of fun!

 

[Rocky Rascovich]

Pretty good chase today in my backyard.. well, sort of. went south toward Purcell where winds were backing on the mesonet and bubbling Cu was occurring. Sat in Purcell until about 1700cdt with Dave Ewoldt monitoring bubbling congestus then erupted into a Cb with overturning, explosive convection. It went severe within literally 30min. from CI.

I tracked it through southern Okla. County, dodging the 2" diameter hailstones that were deposited just prior to my arrival through Midwest City and the Crossroads Mall area. I continued up north and east zig zagging into Lincoln Co. as the cell cycled with attendant wall clouds and amazing structure. I missed it the tornado that probably occurred while I was in the trees heading up north of Choctaw. Congrats to Chris Sokol who nabbed that one.

Still, it was a good chase, as I said, the structure... was incredible. Now I have a narrow but fierce looking squall line bearing down on the farm as of this writing with copious amounts of IC lightning.

Rocky&family

 

[Daniel Christianson]

Got off work, hooked up with my friend Mark, we headed north on I-29 decided to keep trucking along not noticing we missed our Hwy 75 North exit from Sioux City, so we ended up Northeast on Hwy 60 then took a left on a gravel road short of Lemar's IA, saw the bubbled CU couldnt pick up on any warnings till we tuned in the radio and was picking up the station from Sioux Center, we didnt realize we were to the east of the tornado was being reported. We soon realized well, i didnt but my friend Mark, called out what's that, is it could it be we saw a little wrapped up white cone, and passed the field and got a clear view of the derbi being swept up. We got out filmed mayb a 1min or so, should of stayed where we were at but went north thinking it was going to get stronger. Nope... I could not believe there wasnt much rain, nor lightning with this storm, oh well 300 miles" it was worth it. We saw damage south on Hwy 75 south of Rock Valley, some farms got hit, power poles down along a gravel road outside. Does anyone not have anything better to do in RockValley, i swear with all the damn traffic and lookers , didnt even see a cop directing traffic in town.

Not a bad way to start 2008, ill post pics later.

Mark .W

( vid caps )

 

[Shane Adams]

Got home from work around 3pm. Loaded radar/satellite loops, OK mesonet, and took a shower. Got my vidcam out and charged the batteries. Sat there thinking we might have something, then when the initial cu field disappeared thought "screw it." Put vidcam up. A while later noticed the retreating dryline had seemingly settled into a spot just west of I-35. Then noticed a brand new cu field pop up instantly. That was all I needed. Grabbed my gear and headed west to OK9, where I sat across from the Riverwind watching this storm blow-up over a matter of a few minutes. Met up with Chad and his woman in Moore, and started north and east, stopping every so often to get a look at this incredible striated supercell.

Got separated from Chad northbound on Anderson road, north of I-40. I don't know what roads I took, as today I wasn't even using a map, just picking roads that went the direction I wanted. There were repeated cycles, with many attempts at TG. However one in particular wrapped up extremely tight, and was the most pronounced and violent rotation of the evening. I was going up and down hills with trees lining each side, watching this lowered area spinning rapidly. A funnel formed, and TG looked imminent, and I commented on my video "damn, this looks like we're getting ready to have a tornado here." Time was around 7:23-7:24pmCDT by my timestamp. Not long after this area of concentrated, violent rotation ended, a white cone funnel developed, rotating around the southern periphery of the wall cloud. As I pulled over after this funnel, Mickey appeared behind me.

Chad called a bit later asking me if I'd seen the tornado, to which I replied "what tornado?" He explained he'd been sitting at NE23rd and Henney road, and saw a tree rip up out of the ground below the violently-rotating lowered area I'd seen earlier. So I guess I didn't and did see the tornado LOL.

I was getting very low on gas, and we were in BFE nearing dark northeast of Harrah. I caught up to Chad, and then Mick caught up to us. We wanted to keep going after the sup, so we ditched my car on a backroad at a gate entrance and took off in Chad's car. Mick had to turn back because of family commitments, so Chad, his woman, and I trudged on a bit longer. We gave up north of Agra, after the lightning ceased and the base raised. It took us 30 minutes to find my car, then Chad let me out, I put some gas in at I-44/US66, and headed home.

A great backyard chase, and a great example of how not to let your guard down on iffy days. An awesome supercell, brief tornado, and home before midnight. Not a bad way to start the month of May.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Couple pics of the se SD supercell.

It would get all nicely wrapped up, with a good sized vertical chunk of cloud getting the nice rfd treatment as it wraps it up....look like it'd for sure tornado, then bam, coldness look. I have to wonder how that storm would have done without eating the constant stream of small showers popping off the boundary to the nw into it.

 

[David Wolfson]

I and Klipsi (O. Steiger) had similar experiences to the others in southeastern KS. Decided after reaching our initial target of El Dorado, KS, that northern action was very suspect and in any case not reachable, so we went east to get on the good side of the dryline. Based on the RUC's prediction that the dryline lit up starting a bit before 23Z and tail-ended down just north of the OK border in the vicinity of Independence, we were planning to turn south at Iola or Ft. Scott when/if the cap broke.

...And sitting in Iola, watching we were, when the first hard, back-sheared tower went up to anvil level near Melvern (west of Ottawa) about 22Z. It was just too good to resist and we headed north to intercept. We burned up an hour and a half with the northward wild goose chase before we did what we should have done in the first place -- followed the plan.

We made several westerly close approaches to the tail-end near Altoona, Fredonia, and then Buxton just after dark. The last approach was a little too close IMHO, as what seemed to be a rather placid storm on radar moving well north of east redeveloped suddenly almost on top of us a few miles west of Buxton. Golf ball hail started falling where it was not supposed to be driven by strong RFD-like winds and a lowered probable wall-cloud or ??? revealed proximately in the very frequent lightning. A (very!!!) quick 180 was accomplished and we watched and then followed from a safe distance for awhile as that storm revealed by lightning became the one that drilled Chanute with flooding and a possible tornado.

Old lessons re-learned: 1) follow the Plan as long as it continues to make sense; and 2) don't chase after dark. If these sound familiar, they are....