6/30/06 REPORTS: ND/MT/MN

[Scott Olson]

Pete McConnell and I headed out for Devils Lake ND early yesterday morning. By 6pm we were starting to get a bit discouraged seeing the convection further SW and an up and down attempt at a cumulus field in our area. Seeing that the CINH had been removed for several hours and that a decent storm existed 90mi to our SW, we decided to quickly move to intercept. The storm structure started becoming clear at 8:10pm and the first thing we saw was a nearly fully extended funnel cloud that quickly dissipated (did not see any surface circulation) . During this time both visual and radar observations showed that the storm was transitioning from a Classic Supercell to HP. We watched this storm for about twenty minutes as it barelled towards us, the first ten minutes featuring some rotation and nice structure.
Another storm that we noticed about 8mi to our SW briefly had a liberty bell appearance, with either scud or funnel clouds coming down from it (poor visibility). We headed SE and got to witness a beautiful double rainbow against the sun soaked back of a storm. We called the chase off at a little after 10 and started the journey home on the backroads of south central North Dakota.

Nice chasing with ya Pete!

Some Pics:

 

[Bill Doms]

That was kind of fun. Left the house about 10 last night and headed
up I94. ***THE NEW VERSION OF SWIFT WORKED FLAWLESSLY!!***
Hung out in AXN waiting for the bow to come to me. GREAT shelf cloud with it
but uncooperative lightning. Had something set way wrong on the
camera so sorry about the quality of the pics. Oh well, it is 2006!
Had a measured wind gust of 42 mph on the Douglas/Todd county line.
Karen Trammel sent me a text about the same time wanting to know if I had
anything....lol. Called her back at MPX and was told they had a gust
of 52 at the AXN airport. Must be nice to be sitting in the hot seat
and be able to mess with the chaser! Best scene was as the shelf
came over AXN looking back west. I was on 194 at the time trying to
stay ahead of it so couldn't get any pics. Pulled off at the Osakis
exit to take some more pics and could see 5 well-striated tiers with
the shelf. This would have been a beauty during daylight hours. Only
saw one CG though as all of the light show was CC. Gets back to the
theory of once the CAPE is gone or if it is elevated....different
discussion. Anyhow, stayed with the shelf down to STC where it had
weakened considerably and headed home at 2:30am. Back at work on 3.5
hours of sleep....some years, gotta take what you can get.

http://www.mnwxchaser.com/06june30.html