7/08/09 REPORTS: ND/SD/KS

[Matt Chatelain]

Daniel Betten, Curtis McDonald, and myself had a really fun and exciting day across western south dakota. We started the day in North Platte, NE and woke up very early so we could do some site seeing. We visited the Badlands for a few hours, and booked it west to the Black Hills to visit Mt. Rushmore. The visit had to be one of the fastest in the history of the monument as our visit was about 5 mins so we could be back by initiation. We then drove to Stugis and all the storms were struggling with the cap. We then drove east to get some pictures of the badlands with storms, lightning and the sunset (which was an amazing sight!) After giving up on the day, the Mission supercell started rockin and rolling and we saw amazing structure and a beautiful skinny tornado around midnight just south of town. The pics are below... It was a really fun day to end our storm season... and got a rare July tornado.

 

[Dean L. Cosgrove]

Todd County, SD - Supercell / Tornado

Dean Cosgrove
http://chasetours.com/

 

[Brandon Ivey]

Awesome photos Dean! I wish I would have taken more time to take stills of this amazing storm, but I mostly shot video. I documented tennis ball sized hail right around sunset and observed three tornadoes after dark. Video is up here.

http://thestormreport.com/blog/2009/07/july-8th-2009-south-dakota-hail-and-tornadoes/

 

[Stephen Levine]

Report, Texas, July 8 2009

Moderator: Please add Texas to the list of states.

A crinkle in the atmosphere allowed storms to unexpectedly develop southward into east Texas. At 2:20 pm, I set out from Rockwall Texas and headed up I-30 towards Greenville. Initially low topped TCU suddenly came to life and exploded directly in front of me, with tops overshooting the anvil of the storm within minutes.
The highway took me directly into the heart of the storm, and I was greeted with a much bigger punch than anticipated.
Wind gusts ranging from 50 MPH to 65 MPH along with whiteout conditions that included dime sized and up to nickle sized hail greeted me and lasted for quite awhile.
During the storm a 18 wheeler was tipped over on the Interstate.
This intercept was a welcome relief from days of over 100 degree temps with no rain.
In addition instead of having to drive way up into OK, I was able to savor a grand intercept within a 75 mile roundtrip.
Story and photos on my web blog site www.joyfulstormhunting.com