5/24/10 REPORTS: ND/SD/NE/KS/OK/TX

[Willoughby Owen]

Plainview, SD tornado... at times it was a wedge, on the ground for around 18 mins.



Wall cloud was incredibly quick to get it's act together.

 

[Bill Hark]

Amazing day of tornadoes. A full report to follow. Briefly, I drove to the target area of around Phillip, SD. I had planned on going farther north but after getting gas and food, decided to wait on the north side of town for storm formation to the south. I ran into Charles Edwards and Cloud 9 and the group of us headed north to await the arrival of storms from the south. One ot the east looked good but was passing into an area of poor road networks. There was another directly south of Phillip and a better looking storm to the southwest. We followed that storm northward. It eventually organized and produced multiple tornadoes. The image taken below was just west of Howes, South Dakota. In the image below, it is crossing 34. Although storm motion was rapid, it was close to the road. There were very few chasers in the area. I'll post a more detailed account later.

Bill Hark

 

[Olivier Staiger]

Jim Leonard, (left) , shooting at a big tornado from a SAFE distance with his tour. We stayed on paved roads. We later experienced hurricane-force winds but all windows are intact.

slideshow with more images here >
http://www.kyte.tv/ch/klipsi/tornadoes-24-may-south-dakota/p=lpw&c=9038&s=905847&l=2507

 

[Rob Wadsworth]

Went out between Ainsworth and Valentine Nebraska on Hwy 20. Storms went up at/around 4PM, and in the space of less than two hours they all turned into orphans. Couldn't believe it. A couple were tornado warned - and I was on one. By the time I turned south to intercept it - wham! - vanished just like that. You can't make this stuff up! I would cry if I could just stop laughing...

I'm due for a chase where I score...
THAT'S THREE BUST CHASES IN A ROW!!!

 

[Chris Gullikson]

Amazing day near Faith SD with Bill Reid and Brian Morganti while with Tempest Tours. Will post more later.

 

[George Kourounis]

What an amazing day in South Dakota!!

We saw at least 6 tornadoes of various sizes, but the best, by far was the long lived cone to wedge to cone again that crossed the road less than 200 yards ahead of us.

WOW is all I can say... What an amazing chase day when we were expecting the road network and fast moving storms to be very frustrating.

More details here:
http://www.stormchaser.ca/Tornado_Chase_Logs/2010/Chase_2010.html

George Kourounis
www.stormchaser.ca

 

[Nick Nolte]

I was also on the Howes, SD tornado. Today was my last day of my chasecation in the plains, so what a way to end it.

Started the day out in Pierre, SD...waited around in the Wal-Mart parking lot up there (it's up on top of a big hill), decided to head west towards Philips, that's when stuff started popping.

EDIT: Oh yeah, here's a time lapse I shot: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iB38vk4reU4




This is a similar shot to a few before, but from a little further back


Another spin up over there on the right hand side of the main cone.

 

[Brian A. Morganti]

Tornadoes near Howes, SD

Bill Reid, Chris Gullikson, and I intercepted the tornadoes today between Howes and Faith, SD. More images and a summary of this awesome storm can be found here.

http://www.stormeffects.com/recent_events.htm

 

[Tony Laubach]

Ended up missing the Faith storm, but it was faith we kept and resulted in a HUGE score southeast of Bison (all this was just south of SD-20 along SD-73 well north of Faith) up into Adams County, North Dakota! Semi-full report can be found here. Count right now stands between 9-10 tornadoes in one of the strangest enviornments I have ever seen tornadoes in! Also, the second half of the day's tornadoes marked my very first in the state of North Dakota!

Two tornadoes southeast of Bison; the large foreground tornado becoming a massive cone/wedge.

My first (maybe second at this point) North Dakota tornado!

More pics and videos to come, temporary page up now!

 

[cdcollura]

Good day all,

If I did not get all that stuff a couple of days ago on the 22nd in SD I'd be putting a gun to my head right now ... Instead, hats off to all who made it up there and intercepted - again.

My chase was very - VERY frustrating today. I left North Platte (after being in SW Kansas 12 hours prior) and headed north on 83. I saw the storms going up to the west, near and west of Pine Ridge, SD and went after them.

Passing through Pine Ridge, for some reason the Indians there don't use any cell phones, so i lost data for nearly an hour. Once west on 385, near Oelrichs, and checking data there ... That's when I saw the cell in SD northeast of Rapid City ... And outflow junk in my vacinity.

Knowing I would never reach the good stuff north, I continued south and targeted some severe cells that never separated from the line. I won't go into details too much, but below are some pictures...

Above: Hail shaft on backside of storm near Hay Springs, NE.

Above: Mammatus near Valentine, NE.

 

[John Wetter]

Another great day in South Dakota! We also were on the Faith, SD storm. Below are a couple picks with more pictures at wxchaser.com

The warm front delivered again with this one, much like the 22nd in Bowdle. Dryline, we don't need no stinkin' dryline!

 

[Mike Theiss]

Had an amazing day with Cloud 9 Tours... Many tornadoes including a super photogenic tornado crossing the road just in front of us....Many photos here:


http://www.ultimatechase.com/chase_accounts/amazing_tornado_faith_south_dakota.htm

 

[Nathan Edwards]

Left Aberdeen with a target of Faith, SD. Got concerned I'd miss the storms there time wise as they were already forming so sat for 20 minutes trying to work out if I should play for a more northern target. Eventually saw the storm firing a bit further back which would go on to produce the tornadoes between Howes and Faith, so jumped on that.... 20 minutes to late to witness the tornadoes. Frustrating as if I'd not stopped to check data, I'd have caught the last half of the spectacle. Terrain didn't even give me a view of the base till I was almost on the storm. I can't say I'm too bothered though. After the mayhem of 2 days ago I was pretty so so about chasing at all today, until I was almost on the storm at least

Headed south afterwards through the strong winds from the linear storms in SW SD. Came across a lorry blown into a ditch at the same time as a few other motorists. Jumped out of the car to assist, straight into ankle deep mud water and diesel combined and it turns out the driver was long gone and no one had put up signs to indicate it was being dealt with. Given the amount of spilt fuel and potential for fire, I found it quite surprising the truck was left as it was. As we all left I saw more cars stopping to assist so that's probably still going on now...

Second time in 2 days I've wrecked shoes and trousers/shorts in muddy fields... It's starting to get old quickly!

 

[Marcus Diaz]

I caught 3, possibly 4 tornadoes near Spearman, TX today. Got perhaps the greatest show of my career right here!

 

[George Grant]

Lousy day

First off, many thanks to Pete McConnell for the nowcasting.

So, didn't feel like driving one way for seven hours again, so went west on I80 to North Platte. Two cells went tornado-warned just northeast of there and I hopped onto US83 north. And, now the race was on! Finally caught up north of Thedford and followed to Valentine. And, as previously mentioned, there they just died. Went back south to Thedford and west from there to catch the line. One cell was warned southwest of Tryon. Waited for it with the Thomas county sheriff. He wanted to drive further west into the line and I told him I was heading back east. A few minutes later he rejoined me. He also said he saw a tornado east of Thedford from the earlier storms, but I see no report of this.

Started for home along NE2 and stopped in Broken Bow for a burger as the line caught up to me. Continued to Litchfield where my battery light starts blinking and my amp gauge drops to about 12. Unplugged everything quickly, and battery warning light goes off and amps return to 15 or so. Ten minutes later, the same thing starts happening again. Oddly though, it didn't seem to affect headlight, power window or sunroof performance. So, made it to Comfort Inn here in Grand Island for the night. Pessimistically, I'll be looking at a tow bill and a repair bill Tuesday. Or, maybe, it'll start right up and I'll drive straight home. When I won't have to worry about the lights going out!

But, it gets better. My wife called about two hours ago to tell me our nephew's house just burned down in Omaha. Seriously. They and another couple got out, along with four cats and the two cars. They were downstairs in the family room playing a board game when the detectors went off. The master bedroom and the deck burned.

So, obviously, my little battery/alternator/whatever problem pales in comparison. Unfortunately, I don't dare try and drive back to Omaha right now with a pending electrical failure at night on the Interstate.

Not a great day.

Geo