6/26/09 Reports: CO, SD, ND, FL

[Jason Persoff]

What a shockingly uplifting mesoscale accident today in Jacksonville! I've got a lot to say and show about it, but to conserve space here, I'll just forward you to my blog:

http://stormdoctor.blogspot.com/2009/06/tornado-hits-jacksonville-florida.html

The quick summary is that I got to witness a 20 minute tornado today as it moved from SE to NW near my work. What made it so unique was:

a) This is my first SUCCESSFUL sighting of a tornado in JAX since moving here in 1997. I've tried and failed chasing multiple times here and just concluded I had no possibility of success here. Today changed that a lot.

b) The local media continued to call this a waterspout, but I believe based on radar and visual data that this was in fact a true MST and not a waterspout (non-MST). See my link, and feel free to comment if I'm wrong here. Either way, it was gorgeous.

c) This was the hallmark of a lot of small mesoscale phenomena ultimately culminating in a tornado. I couldn't have guessed this was going to happen this morning. There was no risk over our area. A kink in a seabreeze and a mesolow seem to have made this all come together.

d) After watching round after round after round of amazing tornado and storm strux intercepts that occurred after my chase season was over, a little bit of the green-eyed monster got vaporized today. I'm sated for the moment.

I think I've given a lot of post-hoc analysis and hope that this will spark some discussion.

 

[Justin Turcotte]

Chased storms west of Grand Forks, ND. This was generally a shelf-fest despite the number of tornado reports. Last night proved the local spotting network needs additional training. I did see one dirt whirl or gustnado reach cloud base otherwise just a bunch of sheriffnadoes. One gustnado hit me as I drove alongside the air force base.

 

[Daniel Christianson]

MODS: want to add NE to the title.

Well after getting off work i was hesitant to leave but i figured if there was a tornado watch out for western NE, then i could intercept the storms in central NE. Didn't work to well as the storms were further north and west of me. Lincoln county was under a tornado warning at one point then North Platte was under the gun. Reports of alot of rotation and strong winds were being reported with the storm. However i couldnt intercept as it was moving Northeast at 55-60 mph to the northeast. So long story short i ended up outside Broken Bow NE. A line of storms was hauling butt to the east and northeast at around 70mph so i found a spot where i could see and tried to take as much pictures as i could as the bow looked pretty sweet, so much sweeter when it was getting closer and closer but there was no way to stay ahead of this so here's some pics.

 

[Dean L. Cosgrove]

Tornado Warned Storm - Big Springs, NE

Dean Cosgrove
http://chasetours.com/dates.htm

 

[John Hudson]

Chased storms west of Grand Forks, ND. This was generally a shelf-fest despite the number of tornado reports.

I also chased this "setup" hoping for something substantial. Actually waited further south in Fargo for something to pop in that juicy air, but it wasn't to be.

Saw the TOR warned cells speeding along to the northwest of Grand Forks, and blasted north to have a look. After all, a messy squall is better than nothing.

The shelf cloud and gust front were a bit of fun, but no tornadoes were in sight. I suspect that you're right about the "tornado" sightings, Justin. There were even some tall dust swirls on the highway that were causing some people to freak out, but this storm just didn't have it.




John
VE4 JTH

 

[Bill Doms]

Very nice Dean and Justin.

My quest for a sculpted cell over the Badlands by Kadoka continues. Decided to trying staying on the north cell between Wanblee and Interior but everything lit up at once...what a mess. Played with the squall line all the way back to FSD which helped ease the 7 hour trip home. There was so much low level junk flying north in front of the line it was next to impossible to get any good shot unfortunately.

Other images can be seen here.

 

[William Reid]

Big Springs, NE

Great structure shots, Dean!

I have posted some images of the Big Springs/Ogallala supercell here:

http://stormbruiser.com/chase/2009/06/26/june-26-2009-big-springs-ne-supercell/