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.
