7/13/09 DISC: NC/NE/SD

[Matthew Piechota]

From the posts above it looks like we were south of Mike and Wesley by just a smidge.

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Birth of the Valentine Beast back in WY

Picture of the only time it looked like it might go TOR, before it went into Valentine, NE

Picture of before it entered Valentine, NE

[ it's a back road, so no snide remarks about standing on the road, I was acting as safety officer ]

Video of Inflow that Wesley is talking about after it exited Valentine. I ended up with sand in my eyes.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/allisonhouse/3719860708/in/set-72157621297775811/

Our view from south of Mike/Wesley

Awesome shots tyler!

was one heckuva storm, thats for sure!

 

[cdcollura]

Good day all,

The Valentine storm was what I'd say was the meanest supercell I've ever seen.

First of all: WOW ... to say the least!

Second, with the strong inflow reported, interesting to see the Forward-Flank boundary (in this picture extending to the right nearly ON the ground) and associated "horizontal roll" so close to the ground!

Did anyone get a time-lapse (or have video (to speed up) of this monster)?

 

[Dennis Dennison]

very amazing stuff!!

 

[Dean Baron]

Wow, seeing those picks makes me wish I hadnt bailed on the storm, but I dont think I had much of a choice in the position I was in. If anyone sees this post who was watching the base of the storm as it crossed I90, can you tell me what was going on? I have pics that show SOMETHING hanging on the ground right under the updraft, but I'm 99% sure it was NOT a tornado. However I havent seen anybody talk about being on the storm at the time and I'm really interested to find out what was happening since I was too far away to see for sure.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Well I was on it at Kadoka several minutes before it got into Kadoka. It was actually still moving slow there it seemed. When I first got there it had structure like it might produce a tornado with high based structure with it. But that fell apart. Then as it was essentially in Kadoka or just about it had a funky lowering thing deal, with a rfd push south of that, but still had a very ragged high base. Neither were tornadoes. Man that whole drive over there from the Piere storms I swore I was going to miss my tornado in the badlands dream scene. Like right in the badlands park with yellow mounds or pinnacles. Was hoping for an asteroid while sitting in all that construction west of Piere.

Chris I'm sure someone will post something eventually. At that point you actually hardly need to time lapse things. It'll be sick whoever posts a TL of that. Sounds like Roger Hill will.

 

[Wesley Luginbyhl]

Everything was booking so fast, a time lapse wont be needed. One of the guys I was with tried to get some video to timelapse of that storm south of Valentine, but I have no idea how it came out. It was hard enough to just stand up out there, let alone get a steady shot even with a tripod.

I accidently took a photo with the flash on, but it shows how much of the sand hills that were airborn (1st pic). Also, it looked like water was getting blow out one of the small lakes nearby and getting sucked up into the storms inflow (2nd pic).

The lake is in the bottom left behind the powerpole. It looked like water was lifting right out of the lake.

 

[Billy Griffin]

All I can say is this is some of the most jaw-dropping, photogenic stuff I've ever seen captured on photo/video! You guys did an amazing job of keeping up with these monsters!

Congrats, everyone!
Every now and then, I sure get to missing it.

 

[Dean Baron]

Don't want to beat a dead horse but I was going through some video from this day the last couple of days. My location was pretty well east of the base (about 15 miles east on I90). I know what I was seeing wasn't a tornado but I'm wondering what it actually was. This is what I saw from my angle on the storm, just wondering what it actually was. Looks like a nice wall cloud but seeing some pics from closer up I really dont know. Mike??

This was another feature I wasn't sure about. Looks like a possible funnel from my vantage point but again, reading the reports from those who were closer I'm doubting it was anything more than an SLC.

Both video grabs were taken probably around the time people were in or around Kadoka. Any help is appreciated!

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

That first thing happened really shortly after this image from Kadoka:

http://www.extremeinstability.com/stormpics/2009/2009_07_13_5255.jpg

RFD notched in harder left of that and it grew. It was just a lowering/wall cloud, but it was never able to wrap back far enough and never enough "oomph" to it to do much. It got a nice scoop on it during your image time, then just fell apart. It did something sort of similar about an hour earlier or so, but that lowering was a lot more wrapped back and around. Neither ever had much of any motion to them. The feature then never had any sort of funnel associated with it and again was rather pathetic as far as any motion within it. I don't think it threatened any kind of tornado for a good while after that, even though it crossed the highway and was east of me for a bit. I soon got se of it again and had a full view.

What was completely crazy was some sort of microburst from the core exploding south across I90 to my northeast as I left town and started to drive south. It was very short-lived but looked like a bomb went off in the rain and had the ability to blow buildings apart lol. Never seen clouds form and race out at that speed before, but the duration was only 10-15 seconds it did that. Cores exploding south much at all, to the east of the updraft base, never proves well for tornadogenesis. That was the most interesting aspect of that storm, it turning right and being in sweet shear, but apparently some weakness aloft kept those heavy cores closer to the updraft than they needed to be to produce tornadoes. Over and over you could tell the bursting outflow/core dumps were just too close and severe and would rapidly kill what was looking potentially tornadic, like clockwork.

 

[Stephen Locke]

That storm would repeatedly rfd notch and produce those vertical columns of scud that sometimes extended all the way to the surface. No rotation. After several of these cycles I began to get impatient and started to cuss the storm. It paid me back with a broken windshield later in the day. Maybe a man of European ancestry should not cuss the Great Spirit when the storm moves over indian land. Two of those lowerings in one shot here.