9/30/2007 Reports: MN/IA/SD/NE/KS/MO/WI/OK

[Doug_Kiesling]

Well, I started out the chase today very early with the light show and storms that hit the metro Minneapolis area. For being a day away from October, I thought I was chasing an August storm.

I passed on the cold core setup today in Iowa due to the lack of sleep and tons of work I need to get done.

Here is a photo from the lightning this morning over Eagan MN.

 

[Jeremy Ludin]

Joel Wright and I ended up in Calhoun County waiting for the low pressure spinoff. Witnessed a rotating wall cloud with a few funnels, but no touchdowns. It was actually tornado warned with a spotter reporting one on the ground, but we never saw a touchdown. It was behind that dang barn for about 3 minutes or so, but who knows. It really wanted to produce, but just couldn't get up the motivation. It was quickly overtaken by a new storm to the south which also produced a pretty interesting lowering, but the dry air quickly ate it up. Not too much for now I suppose, it's late and I need to get some shuteye...

 

[Brian Stertz]

Chased the t-warned outflow dominated supercells north of Sioux City, then dropped southeast and saw the Calhoun Co. IA tornado near Lytton...it was brief and quite stretched out...then became segmented from my vantage point. Pics and a more detailed chase account to follow tonight (hopefully).

 

[scott r currens]

Congrats on the tornado Brian! I don't see it in the SPC storm reports so make sure to email FSD. I noticed that two of the hail reports that I called in were in the storm reports last night but are gone this morning. That is kind of odd.

I observed two LT “supercells” (this might be a stretch) in NE Nebraska that developed lowerings with moderate to strong rotation near Walthill and Winnebago. The lowerings were interesting but never seemed close to producing a tornado. From Winnebago to Homer, NE I encountered copious amounts of very hard pea to marble sized hail with an occasional golfball mixed in. I continued to slice through the convective arc from Dakota City, NE to Cushing, IA experiencing 50-60 mph winds and up to 2 inch diameter hail.

N of Walthill, NE

Near Winnebago, NE

3 miles east of Cushing, IA

Looking East at the convective arc from Correctionville, IA

 

[Joey Ketcham]

Tyler Costantini and I along with Dick McGowan and Darin Brunin were on the tornado warned cells up around the Sac, Buena Vista, Pocahontas counties in Iowa.

 

[Dustin Wilcox]

I too was on the Tornado warned storms in the Sac County areas, I initally was on storms near the MO river before following the SE growing Arc to the East, much like Scott above I came across the Large hail and winds just South of Correctionville, IA. From there I continued East through the Wind Farms, I watched a ragged looking base with some minor motion, hard to call it rotation just N of Arthur, about that time the Tornado Warning was issued, but it was becoming apparant, that if anything had a chance it would be the new Convection to the SE so I raced E and watched the next storm Work North, I was just East of Nemaha when the tornado was reported near Lyton I could see the base through the rain but was never able to make out any touchdown, after watching that storm race by I again dropped E to see what the next storm could offer but after watching it move by I was not impressed and opted to call it a day. Have not gone through all the pictures yet and probably won't have time until tomorow, I just have this one for now. This was just N of Arthur some pretty sweet motion in there for a while though it wasn't really cylonic motion, just some sick inflow.

 

[Joel Wright]

Ended up out in northwest Calhoun county in Iowa, near Sherwood. Nice wallcloud formed on the strongest of the two cells on the tail-end of the arc of storms rotating northward. Just as things were beginning to get interesting it got cut off by the cell to it's southeast pulsing up. We were in great position for the next cell, hoping it too would try to get something going. There were virtually no other towers to it's southeast, so we were hoping this one would do it. It again formed a ragged lowering, but it wasn't even rotating. After it was clear it would do nothing, and the fact that darkness was setting in, we began the 5hr trip back the Quad Cities.

Congrats to Brian and others who captured today.

 

[Craig Maire II]

I was just a couple miles east of Cushing Iowa watching the storm that produced 2 inch diameter hail east of Cushing when I decided to head to Holstein Iowa, there I witnessed 50 to 60 mph winds and approximately 3/4 inch hail (came down sporadically). After the hail and wind subsided I traveled east on highway 20 and about 1 mile south of the town of Schaller in northwest Sac County I encountered parts of corn stocks falling from the sky!

NOTE! during my chase along highway 20 in northern Sac County a vehicle with red and blue flashing lights (the lights were on the front of the truck with none on the back) quickly came up behind me and nearly gave me a heart attack plus caused me to pull over so they could go by! After I got back on the highway and proceeded east I ran back into them and shot video of them as they decided to head north towards the tornadic storm on a gravel road, if this was indeed a chaser or even a spotter and they read this IN IOWA ONLY EMERGENCY PERSONEL CAN USE RED AND BLUE FLASHING LIGHTS! I'll have know problem turning in any yahoo chaser who uses emergency lights to move me and or others out of the way because they think it's cool to do that, that they are special etc.!

 

[Brian Stertz]

Oddly enough only saw one other chase vehicle up there along Highway 20 in Sac and Calhoun Counties. Got caught in a caravan of Sunday blue hairs that set me back and had to watch the tornado from about 2-3 miles west. I had to do a double take...and then the t-warning came across . Yes Craig I too had some corn stalks falling out of the sky on me back between Holstein and Quimby. Got hammered by half dollar sized hail there too.

 

[Dan Melby]

Was a coin flip on sundays chase. I really wanted to go southeast of the center of the low to near south of des moines. Planned on heading that way until after I fueled up when last second I decided to head west. Which, I feel It wasnt a bad choice, but not the right one as there was at least 3 reports of tornadoes just east of d.m. Followed the southern edge of the line from near Shaller all the way to Manson. Was on 2 storms that really showed potential one was cut off by a cell out of the south. Had connection issues and some how ended right in the middle of the storm that Craig talked about with flying corn stalks(decent hail in it too!). The other storm was near Lytton, which by now, everyone has discussed.. Not a bad fall chase.

 

[Brian Stertz]

Here are a few of my pics from the Sunday 9/30 chase, including the small stretched out tornado near the town of Lytton IA. There was decent structure on each of the arcing dryline horseshoe of small supercells. The Sac-Calhoun Co. supercell was the largest and most intense one of the bunch and ended up producing. The supercell circulation eventually weakened and moved into Pocahontas Co.

http://vortex-times.com/9302007pix.htm

 

[Bob Hartig]

My chase partners, Bill and Tom Oosterbaan, and I witnessed the same rope funnel. However, positioned a few miles to its northwest, we also observed another interesting feature that I'm guessing was connected with it. This was a small wall cloud that rotated in an anticyclonic direction. Pretty darn cool, and I suspect it represented the other end of the "dynamic pipe" that also produced the rope. We were all standing there, gawking at the thing, when I happened to glance off to my southeast and noticed a segment of the rope hanging in the air off in the distance. I snapped a couple photos of it, but I was using a disposable camera with no zoom, and I might as well not have bothered. I had better success with the wall cloud, however. I'll post those photos tomorrow.

 

[Skip Talbot]

I was up in Northwest IA with the rest of the gang. I intercepted a severe warned cell a few miles south of Storm Lake where I bumped into Scott Weberpal and Doug Raflik. The highlight of the day was a white rope funnel that snaked itself down a third of the way to the ground. It was embedded between cells as were following some original updrafts and the flanking line was encroaching on us from the south. It was actually hailing (and pouring rain) when we spotted it and that kept me from getting pictures of it. I opened my door to get out and shoot it, but I might as well have opened my door under water. I was lucky I didn't ruin my camera or laptop. Scott managed to get a discernible shot of it though. I believe this was a different vortex than the one Brian was on, as that funnel (which looked very similar to ours) seemed to be bit more on the back edge, further to the ground, and on a cell to our southeast. Here's a few pics and I'll update this post with the log when I get it done:

Nicely contrasted convection on the back end of an updraft tower:

A lowering with a little inflow tail, looking east a few minutes before we spotted the funnel:

I finally made it down to Tail-End-Charlie before the tornado warning expired and saw this occluded base. I followed it until I was sure it had gusted out and called it a chase just before 7:30:

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Not a lot to post about this one. I sat northeast of this storm as it moved ne towards Cushing/Correctionville. It wanted to produce for a long period of time as it approached. The rfd would cut in and begin pulling around a lowering, but it wasn't doing it quick enough. The cold pool to the nw would grow and want to line it out too soon. Over and over it would do this. I headed home as I saw all the other towers go up east of it. For the longest time it had no competion over there. It always had an inflow tail or two on the nw side going ne.

By the way, why were corn stalks falling out of the sky? I never saw any of that, but was ahead of the storms watching them north of Holstein. Right then there were two new bases over the area. I never saw any tornadoes under them though.

 

[Jeremy Ludin]

Just added my report HERE. Not the greatest chase, but this will more than likely be our last chase of the year. Time for winter storms!