6/16/10 - REPORTS - SD

[Melanie Kern-Favilla]

Chased up to Dupree, SD today and witnessed at least 13 different tornadoes touch down just southwest/east of town. Storm was anchored for quite some time and cycled continuously. Photos to follow over the weekend, as my laptop is inop at this time.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

I sure didn't feel like chasing this day. The whole weak mid-levels(25 knots) bugged me, but it was just enough if a storm turned on a boundary, as well as the fact the low levels would be so backed. Plus there was decent vent up above that. But after screwing up 10th on sw-ne boundary further east and missing CO structure...then flopping that the next day and chasing CO and missing the slow nw KS beast....well just sick of screwing up and this day wasn't screaming madness. But went anyway and so glad I did. 750 miles later. I swear NOTHING is close to home in 2010.

Cu feeding nw along the wf guided me north out of Kadoka, after also seeing a tower up there from way way out. Radar loop soon showed consecutive towers popping off the same area. That area usually pays off. It took forever though for stuff to get established and turn right and stop drifting northwest. Was due west of this one as it fired, south of Faith. Finally jumped up to Faith and punched it east.

It had nice structure for a while and produced a couple real brief funnels and tornadoes. Just barely able to call the one a tornado. A bit after this a flat out nasty CG barrage began. On and on, all over CGs. I used this same little pull off west of Dupree for just about 2 hours straight! The thing wouldn't budge. It wasn't even watching it far off really either, just the same distance for 2 hours. Structure came and went with a nice visual vault at times. It was just a great storm up through that point of the CG barrage, structure and couple funnels/tornado.

I got kind of bored in that same spot so decided to drive west a couple miles and sample the core. I mean hell it wasn't moving, so why not! They were just about to cracking my windshield when I noticed just how strong the north-south push was just west of me. I decided to get back out of there, stuck behind a semi doing 20 mph down the highway in the hail. Soon as I could see south again I could see a big bowl just south of the highway. I went right back to the same pull off deal and sat there again. This was crazy given how long I'd already sat in that thing. It was just odd.

The tornado of the day quickly formed and went nuts. Changing size and just move all over the place under that storm. Then another tornado formed next to it and moved behind it. I never even saw that other vortice in front of it up in the air. This was all just about due south of me now around a mile or so. It was rather large for a good while. As it finally skinnied up and moved north towards the road where I was, I could see a new big bowl getting going just to my west. I raced that lead tornado east as that big bowl turned into a large tornado just about to head in to Dupree. Thankfully I don't think either of these did much to the town.

I forget what all happened east of town about 1 mile. Not far from where I'd just came, as the storm still was barely moving. Just crazy motion on this storm and fast forming tornadoes. I think right then there was this I believe anticyclonic circulation just south of me, keeping me east of the new main big tornado almost in that town. While those two were doing their thing, other stout tornadoes would form more towards the center of the rfd cut/base. For sure top 3 crazy storm I've seen.

Lightning was silly after all that. Doing those down branch things. Like it branches down then one bolt comes out of that "tree" and hits. Lots of those. With very rapid CG activity. Then crawlers later on east of the storms in the anvil.

Full account later. Mostly shot video.

 

[AndyGabrielson]

Captured several tornadoes yesterday, it all depends on how you do the counting I guess but I would say we witnessed 11 different funnels actually touch down, now, again, depends how you count, I saw people questioning some of the insane totals that were coming out, not all the tornadoes were included in the video (some were fairly rain wrapped), but here it is...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48EfUzmhdJQ

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8ivuVO0oRg

10 minute video.

 

[Melanie Kern-Favilla]

The first two cells near Dupree went up quickly and died almost as quickly. It was the third cell that anchored itself and kept throwing out tornado after tornado. I'm not a particularly good judge of wind speed, but the inflow was so strong on this storm that you had to fight to stand up straight at times. My camera was shaking in the wind; I had a hard time holding it steady. Mike Hollingshead might be able to attest to wind speed better than myself, but I would say it was at least 50+mph sustained.

Here are just a few photos from that day. The rest can be seen here:



http://photos.spiffypix.com/2010tour6

MODS: Feel free to delete some photos if you feel there are too many.

Initial Updraft:

Shear funnel from second cell:

Structure of third cell, just before the first tornado developed:

The first (small) tornado from Dupree:

Two more, just before they briefly touched down:

First of the large touchdowns:

The following several photos are either new touchdowns or various stages of existing tornadoes:

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

http://www.extremeinstability.com/2010-6-16.htm

Full account up, but I didn't bother with video captures so the account actually doesn't cover it all that well image wise.

 

[Bill Doms]

Chase account:

http://www.mnwxchaser.com/10june16.html

Was one of the unfortunate people caught on 212 west of Dupree by the flooding. Fits into the category of **** happens....right Tony?

The video....many of you have probably seen it already.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BynuK4zArmw