5/22/2010 REPORTS SD

[Robert Edmonds]

Multiple tornadoes in northeast SD, my guest counted ~5. More photos coming, just thought I'd throw this up. Still in transit, will post more.

Edit: Now added more at my blog...

Here's a photo of the wedge.

 

[Skip Talbot]

Had a career chase day near Bowdle, South Dakota today caravanning with Brandon Sullivan, Brad Goddard, Kevin Crawmer, and Zach Chappell. Followed a tornadic supercell from its birth from a cumulus north of Pierre to its death as an HP supercell west of Aberdeen, witnessing several tornadoes in between, including a violent wedge. Was close enough to the wedge to hear its thunderous roar and have my ears pop. I gained a chase partner when Kevin Crawmer's car started smoking in front of the wedge just north of Bowdle. We dropped south and he jumped in my van where we then continued the chase. West of Bowdle we saw another very photogenic tornado backlit and framed by incredible supercell structure. We stayed ahead of the supercell as it cycled between HP and classic modes before we finally called the chase off near Ipswich and dropped south and west to get Kevin's car. It was an incredible with some of the most amazing sights I've ever seen while chasing, and very special that I got to witness it from the start and record the entire chase with the robotic camera dome.

Log, video, pictures, and map:
http://www.skip.cc/chase/100522/

 

[Brandon Sullivan]

Best Chase Ever!

What a great day.. Here are some quick pics! Dang dirt on my lense apparently. ah well.. stoked!!

 

[Doyle McIntosh]

chased the SD beast with Terrance Cook. We left Indiana the night before and drove strait through, after much deliberation we ended up posted east of Alaska SD watching an agitated cu field trying to put up towers. Finally after a few hours the cap broke and from there things progressed rather quickly.

first towers trying
\

first lowering as the meso started to get its act together


we let the rotation get a little closer as the funnel starts to kick up dust


tornado takes on a different shape as it passes over the flooded field about 100 yards from us (were going rather fast at this point trying to get the heck out of the way)


At this point we realized that this thing was going to become a monster. I'd never seen such violent storm motion.


for those lucky enough to be just north of Bowdle at the right moment this is what we saw. Absolutely incredible wedge

 

[Jason Montano]

Was on the Bowdle, SD wedge and follow on 5 or 6 tornadoes. What a storm. Here is a quick video clip of the wedge.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztQ6FrM5g3c

Compiled the video together and rendered a 1080p version of it. I am really upset with myself though that I lost 5 minutes of video of the wedge. I tri-podded my camera pushed the record button but it was on still camera mode and I did not notice. So instead of 5 minutes of incredible video I wound up with a really nice picture. Oh well still a unbelievable day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yul0O8L6oqg

This is the really nice picture that should have been 5 minutes of video:

 

[Erik Perozo]

Chased with Douglas Berry in SD. Started out in Sterling, CO and drove up to north of Pierre to intercept the Supercell Beast! Ended up seeing 4 tornadoes along with the wedge.

 

[Nick Nolte]

Also chased the SD Wedge. Was in Valentine, NE after yesterday. Drove up 83 to Pierre. Sat around at a McD's bummin their WiFi checking out the situation. Figured it'd be a while until stuff popped...went to get my oil changed (was overdue) they said an hour...I started to leave and was planning to head west on 14 until for some reason I changed my mind.

Waited around til oil was changed...came out and saw the Cu starting to go up north of Pierre, dashed up there, and everything else is history. Attached photos.

 

[Paul Austin]

Same as most everyone else on the South Dakota cell. This chase would have to be in the top two or three all time for us. We witnessed this cell from birth, just a cluster of cumulus, to wedge-producing beast, to tornado-producing LP supercell, to HP monster. Fantastic experience!

Here are a few video captures. I'll get some pics and video up when I get a chance.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

What an incredible deal that was. Easily the craziest storm encounter I've ever had. Was on it west of Hoven early. Went back to Hoven then north towards highway 12 stopping a couple miles south of 12. Watched it rapidly go nuts and produce a tornado moving right for that location. Filmed that for a bit then jumped north to 12 to go east right ahead of it.

I went east a couple miles and pulled over west of Bowdle. This is looking west there down highway 12. The only car closer at this point was the Dominator, deploying in the thing. This was simply incredible here. Violent motion. The forming collar cloud was making me very uneasy in this spot, but I was thinking, I have a good spot right there, nice little gravel pull off I was in. And I thought it would pass just west. The motion in the collar cloud and cloud tags around it, going overhead was unreal. Violent.

I have a lot of stills but this laptop is not happy. Also shot video of the whole event at the same time, which tells the tell a lot better than the wider angle stills will.

As it passes just west you could dirt racing into it right on the ground, looked like 100mph. Upon watching my video I can see the Dominator down there and a couple people outside of it! (I guess it may have been Samaras deploying a pod, they both came out of there) Same time the trees on the north side of the road are shredding like mad.

It was crazy after it gets just to the north side of 12. Manchester II. Violent motion around the intense wedge. Screaming cloud tags and stretched out vorticies in the wedge fanning around.

I filmed for a good bit from that spot on 12 then went east real quick and tried to hop north ahead of it, I guess at Bowdle. It was moving more east now and I could see too many chasers already right up there in the path. I decided to back into another nice gravel pull off and filmed it all there just south of it, never having to move. Glad I haven't heard of any chaser deaths. I feared there would be up in there.

Just a violent wedge up there with frequent intense wrapping rain bands. The visibility would come and go and when you could see it it just looked mean.

I've never experienced mother natures violence quite like that. Just bad luck all these years I guess as no storm I've been on has been that violent.

Dropped back south and went east where it produced another tornado. I'd be tempted to call all that before one long-lived tornado.

Congrats to all that made the drive up there and bagged that. Something about that area that likes insane wedge makers.

Will post a lot more of this when I get home tomorrow I guess. Without watching the video one just won't get it lol.

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

Argh.

Chased with my girlfriend Tia, who never fails to be a sure fire way to get the day to go nuts. Started the day perfectly, ended the opposite. I positioned exactly where I wanted to early on, and was able to do a time lapse for nearly 30 minutes as the supercell matured and moved towards me. As I hoped, tornadogenesis occurred directly down the road from where I sat so I was able to catch the entire sequence without moving the camera. Was very near that first stove pipe, really unintentionally as I said, I never really had to move.

That's about as good as it got. Was slammed with RFD for a while there on 47. When I went to head north, the road was blocked. I thought I was doing the smart thing and turned around and flew south to the next paved highway, whatever that was. About 20 minutes later I was back ahead of the storm and in perfect position! Except that I was too late. Missed the whole 1000 tornadoes on the ground at the same time event.

Then, to make matters worse, after dodging about 35 previous, I finally nailed a pheasant with the front end of my car. He completely smashed in my grill, which is now gone. Had to pry him out in Roscoe with the sirens sounding where I apparently missed another brief visible touchdown.

I was more or less done at that point. I kept ahead of the storm shooting structure for a while but once I hit Aberdeen I just hit the road for Sioux Falls where I'll be spending the night.

For those of you who experienced the 1,321,623,853 tornadoes at once, if you care, here's what the view was from a distance.

The grill is now completely gone. The bird mangled it, and it was sucked off of my car shortly after getting him out.

The time lapse should be pretty sweet, but I won't likely have that up for a couple days.

 

[Zach Chappell]

Chased along with skip and brandon had a amazing day. Started out down by Pierre then followed CU north and east until it formed into what would be the start of a monster tornadic supercell as everyone has seen. Pics are posted below a really wonderful day indeed.

 

[cdcollura]

Good day all,

What a crazy tornado-fest day in South Dakota, along Highway 12 in Edmunds county!

Above: Tornado #1 southeast of Java, SD.

Above: Tornado #2 in the stovepipe stage.

Above: Wedge tornado north of Bowdle, SD.

Above: Tornado crosses the road north of Bowdle.

Above: Storm cycles again northwest of Ipswitch, SD.

Above: Structure of the HP stage of the same supercell as last tornado winds down!

 

[Bill Hark]

Amazing day. Too tired to write a full report but will later. I was on the SD Bowdle storm since it was a tower and saw multiple tornadoes including a wedge at close range. A couple of pics.

Bill Hark

 

[Adam Lucio]

TORNADO FEST! As others have already mentioned. We lost count after 7 but will have to review video for exact total. We stayed in the bears cage and at one point we had a drill bit and a cone going simultaneously. Then when the convoy got stuck in the mud there was a tornado about 50 feet from us. Tornadoes were just touching down all over the place and I have no idea just how many I saw. It was just incredible.

We were on that storm when it was just a struggling cu attempting to break the cap...once it did it just exploded and went completely bonkers.

Here are the only tornado pictures I got...of the very first tornado and then the trunk that touched down after the wedge. Everything after that was caught on film and Ive got some wild footage to share but it will be a couple of days.

Storm motions were awesome. 15-25mph! 5-22 >>>>>>>>> 5-10!!!

 

[Brad Nelson]

Bowdle, SD Wedge

Good morning all! Here is the link to my chase log from yesterday. One of my best chases of all time and very well could be the #1 tornado I've ever seen, that being the Bowdle Wedge. I will be posting video when I have time to edit and, believe me, we got within a 1/2 mile or less of this monster and the video is incredible. Anyways, here's the link:

http://eyeonthetwister.com/index.php/2010/05/0522/