Storms Observed This Year

"Backyard Chase" Supercell & Sunset

Central and S OK, 17 Jun 6

SHORT:
Short-lived supercell observed between CHK-PRC, outflow dominant storms thereafter between DUC-ADM. Interesting, photogenic sky textures seen.

[NOTE: If you don’t know the observation site identifiers we use, look them up.]

LONG:

After making the morning forecast we headed toward CHK with priorities focused on any storms that interacted with the pre-existing outflow boundary from the overnight convection, where low level shear and vorticity would be concentrated. As we approached CHK on the tollway, we noticed a storm developing to our S that, initially, appeared rather high-based for being rooted in 80s/70s F surface air. It might not have been surface-based, at least initially, but it soon would become became so. The storm did coincide quite well with the intersection of
1. A meridional low level cloud band we had seen on VIS imagery before leaving (likely related to differential diabatic heating on the back side of a departing high cloud canopy) and
2. The outflow boundary itself.

Looking E from old Highway-9, 4 W Tabler, we could see the storm still appeared somewhat high based, but also, that a bunch of convection already had developed farther SW (not shown), sending anvil material careening overhead. This storm would have some opportunity to take advantage of the outflow boundary -- but only in a short time window before being seeded and maybe absorbed into a larger complex. We penetrated the southern part of the core between Tabler and Dibble, figuring hail wouldn't be too large yet. It wasn't -- nothing even marginally/technically severe, despite someone else's report of "nickel" hail in the same area at the same time.

Once east of the core and of the main updraft, the storm's character obviously had changed. It now sported a pronounced and persistent wall cloud (looking W from 1 WNW Dibble and wider view, with weak cyclonic shear evident. ["Service-J" reported weak rotation, and for once his assessment was about right.] From 3 ESE Dibble another wide view shows that the FF core separated some from the main mesocyclonic updraft region, a tail cloud extended off to the storm's E (our NW-N), but the wall cloud became more diffuse).

At 3 N Criner we were joined by Jim LaDue and his much better half as the storm itself began to cut a clear slot and take on more of a horseshoe shape to the updraft base. Continued slow rotation was evident as the storm moved to our NW, then to our N -- the base getting higher as the RFD clear slot eroded away much of the cloud material. During this stage we also were joined by Rich and his much better half, leading to the first simultaneous encounter with two unrelated people named Daphne that is known to have been documented near Criner OK. :-)

As feared, that storm got absorbed into the much larger blob of convection that eventually shot across Norman. Meanwhile, we shot S to get out of the growing, darkening MCS, in hopes of additional development and perhaps a buffet dinner at Ryan's in ADM. The tail-end activity presented a picturesque, outflow-dominant appearance between Ratliff City and Healdton, before undergoing assorted stages of weakening and intensification as it propagated slowly toward ADM. Meanwhile, we headed toward that big dinner.

We stopped briefly just E of Wilson to admire a strikingly clean, blue sky filled with deep ACCAS towers, noting the peculiarity of that clarity in an Oklahoma moist sector, in mid-late June. This being the end of the road for the 2006 chase season for us, we found an ideal metaphor underfoot within 20 feet of where I stood to shoot the previous photo.

[That was eerily similar to another photo I shot of old-and-new highways in the Nebraska Sandhills a couple weeks before, which I hope to append to that day's SUMM in coming days.]

After dinner the S side of the MCS overtook us as we wandered around the ADM area, so we traveled to the back side, in the Arbuckles, in hopes of some nice sunset light. We were not disappointed (photos of a rainbow, a low-sun scene, the setting sun with crepusculars a few minutes later, and nice coloration and shadows after sunset, aided by the same line of cumuli and a more distant little Cb). Through haze and distance to the SSW, Elke pointed to me an odd "Ring of Saturn" cloud formation in the midlevels, around a storm in north TX. I've seen such a cloud ring drawn in Dave Hoadley cartoons for over two decades, but this was the first time I recall witnessing one that looked as pronounced as those in Dave's drawings.

Then came the short drive home to reflect on what has been a rewarding and adventuresome 2006 season. What a more ironic and fun way to conclude Storm Intercept Sojourn 2006 for us than a pleasant little "backyard chase."

Outflow Dominant Storms, Sunset and Lightning

SW KS, OK/TX Panhandles and W OK, 16 Jun 6

SHORT:
Witnessed initially promising supercell gust out badly as it moved from SE CO into SW KS. Heavy dust, numerous gustnadoes. Tiny left mover in NE panhandle. Photogenic sunset scenes and nocturnal lightning.

LONG:

We left GCK intending to go to GUY and re-evaluate. At the GUY library we noticed storms building in NE NM near CAO, back in the dry air but moving NE toward the triple-point sfc low (dryline + cold front). Early initiation! Sometimes this does good things in the "bent back" area of an upper wave and near a sfc low, so it aroused out interest. Also, TCu could be seen building SSE down the dryline, into the DHT area and into a small triangle of strongly heated air that had developed to the W of the band of elevated clouds and precip. We decided our initial target would be the storms (by then) moving across Cimarron County OK, toward the SE part of Baca County CO, with the option to drop E and S later after anything else along the dryline.

By the time we left the library the storm showed a reasonably pronounced hook and low-midlevel meso as it cruised W-N of Boise City. I was concerned about dew point depressions and LCL height but hoped the storm would maintain supercellular characteristics long enough for us to get there and enjoy it for a little while. Heading NW then W on OK 3/US 412 (Northwest Passage) we could see a sharp anvil with overshoot and backshear off to the WNW. We also saw more towers building to its immediate S, in particular, a separate small anvil that had me concerned about an eventual linear evolution.

[Sorry, no photos at all of this storm or its effects...I was driving the whole time!]

We bolted N through EHA to intercept the storm in NW Morton County, as the storm entered its fourth state in two hours. Flanking towers were apparent feeding into the supercell from the SSE side, with a line of more towers connecting that flank to the S side of the other (southern) development. We hoped this wasn't a line developing along outflow.

Our hope was dashed. As we finally got out of the sunlight and under the nearly meridional anvil plume, we could see a ragged, rounded, scuddy wall cloud under the SE-flank, but also, an arcus cloud to its S surging E and NE with scud rising rapidly above vertical columns of lifted dust. The meso was undercut really fast, just as we were getting into good viewing position, and the chasers became the chased.

The storm vomited a hefty load of cold outflow beneath itself and all over us, slamming and then rocking the car with what probably would be measured as severe gusts if we were driving a MM vehicle. Turning E and going 70 mph on what initially was a paved, unmarked road (with no speed limit signs), I felt only faint headwind with my hand out the car window. The dust plumes were thick, sharply defined and very turbulent, occasionally shearing up some equally pronounced gustnadoes. The car kept getting spattered with a mixture of wet-then-dried dust and rain-mud, making gustnado photography through the window a futile endeavor.

The pavement ended and we slowed considerably, but were fortunate that the gravel and dirt were well-packed with excellent traction. [KS Atlas and Gazetteer, as it has in the past, erroneously labels this a paved road all the way through to the next highway E.] We reached that eastern highway, a N-S road through Rolla, and evacuated the area, not seeing any storm intercept future beneath an ever expanding pool of 58 deg F surface outflow, reinforcing a cold front.

Back to GUY we went, minus two hours and a third of a tank of fuel. We could see some development SW of town but knew this new storm would be undercut by the onrushing arc of northwestern outflow that met us again during refueling. We bolted SE and watched that happen, before encountering a tiny little (anticyclonically) rotating updraft near Gruver. This was a dying remnant of an old storm split, calved deviantly leftward off another storm still farther S that had we could see had met its rainy demise. From Spearman, more storms could be seen going up to our WNW, but behind the OFB+front (denoted just above the surface by that stratiform cloud band).

We saw west-edge towers of other storms in the eastern Panhandle, to the distant S. Being late in the day by then, we decided to head SSE toward Miami TX to either intercept this activity shortly before sunset (if it remained viable) or experience the sunset on its backside. The combined anvil canopy of the two complexes (northwestern storms and those over the eastern Panhandle) did yield a nice mammatus display (looking E and looking NW from 20 NW Miami).

After hearing that storms in the eastern Panhandle complex were moving NE at over 50 mph, we lot interest in getting ahead of them, instead settling for the sunset opportunities. The burn areas NW of Miami seem to have recovered well, but charred trees and the charcoal remains of wooden fence posts could be seen all over the roadsides.

To pass some time before sunset, and fill our hungry bellies, we made a mistake that would haunt us both at the back end for three days thereafter: eating at the little cafe in downtown Miami. The food was old, greasy and bland, the corn (which Elke didn't eat) brown and mushy instead of yellow and crisp, the green beans (which I did eat) obviously dumped from a steel can, the chicken-fried steak as soft as the mashed potatoes, the frying oil probably having been re-used numerous times with inadequate refrigeration. I hope the good folk of Roberts County aren't accustomed, or worst, resigned, to eating that crap.

Not only was the food lame, the ~17 year old waitress/cashier seemed as dumb as a box of rocks: semi-literate and incapable of simple arithmetic. The girl couldn't read her own handwriting, and neither could I; so I explained, at the register, what she had served to us and how to tally the total (including an impromptu primer on the meaning of percentages). She seemed awestruck by the concept of moving the decimal point. Take my advice: Don't eat at the little corner cafe in downtown Miami TX.

Next we headed to NE Gray County for sunset photography, ignorant of the distress that would be inflicted on our gastrointestinal tracts over coming days. Instead it was a relaxing and enjoyable visit to an America as bygone as the day soon would become.

The old, abandoned, wood-and-tin grain towers of Laketon testified wistfully to a more prosperous era, speaking in the language of sheet metal rattling in the breeze and thick wooden timbers creaking under gentle, imperceptible sway. Both western and eastern buildings seem destined for collapse in the next big downburst, if not sooner. Surprisingly, they are located beside a section road and a highway with nothing to keep out over-adventurous kids and teens. Barring that unfortunate occurrence, they will serve their remaining days as roosts for the barn owls and swallows, and havens for the mice and insects (respectively) that nourish them.

Our last daylight sight on the Great Plains this spring was a fantastic sunset, including a brief scene where the orange orb seemed snugly swaddled in insulating blankets, as if it were a well-fed and content baby falling asleep for the night.

Instead of heading to I-40 and charging full-bore through the building MCS between us and home, as we often have done in the past, we decided to take a more time consuming but casual and enjoyable approach, creeping up on it, observing an photographing a little lightning at one spot until it receded eastward, then doing the same again and again, incrementally, even into western OK around midnight.

Stopping to shoot lightning is a great way to break up the monotony of a long drive home at night. Finally, we caught a gap between some of the cores and got home at around 3:30 a.m., weary but satisfied from a long time away from home, yet willing and ready for one more "gentleman's chase" the next afternoon.

I-70 Dust Front and High Based "Cumulonimbus Junkus"

East CO and west KS, 15 Jun 6.

SHORT: Tremendous windstorm and dust in east Colorado. High based linear mush in west KS.

LONG: On this 14th anniversary of the great, legendary superdupercell at Beloit KS, we left DEN hoping for a measly LP supercell.

We expected little and got less. The most interesting part of the trip was the result of the development of high-based convection over east Colorado: a collective plume of downburst related outflow than slammed us hard between Siebert and Burlington. This windbag, with severe gusts measured in some obs, raised temps into the mid-upper 90s (daytime heat burst action) and lofted a a lot of dust. Driving on I-70 was difficult for folks on motorcycles and in high-profile vehicles because of the gusty crosswinds and airborne grit. Standing outside in tropical storm force winds -- but hot and dry and dusty -- wasn't a good omen for the rest of the storm observation day.

After that we transected a very high based line of crapola over west KS that was good only for marginal/junk "severe" reports, enough to technically verify warnings but not anything truly dangerous outside the lightning. [No actual severe weather was seen by us but we did not penetrate the most dense cores.] We did see a few pretty CGs but the line itself was basically amorphous and free of structure worth photographing.

After snagging some gifts for Steve C from an abandoned railroad right-of-way near Healy KS, we headed for a dinner and room in GCK. Some close CGs and their thunderous accompaniment awoke me shortly after midnight, a result of more storms that formed in the same band of ascent that produced the daytime "junkus," as the zone of lift shifted E across the GCK area.

===== Roger =====

From Multicell Garbage to Electrical Spectacular

Northeast CO, 11 Jun 6.

SHORT: Somewhat scenic, high-based, daytime multicell with supercell attempts along I-76. Spectacular anvil crawlers after dark.

LONG: We headed up I-76 toward the CYS Ridge target area and waited on a hilltop N of Ft. Morgan. And waited, and waited, and waited, in the baking sun. Storms were forming in a convergence zone between DEN-FCL, but we ignored them for a long time because of weaker moisture, hoping for development to our N.

Finally we grew impatient, and with eyes still trained longingly to a northern sky devoid of deep moist convection, we decided to backtrack toward DEN to investigate that activity. After a couple of hours of observation, we noticed development way off in the distant N, on the N edge of my original target area, but it was too late. I knew a good supercell was possible up there in the better moisture, and was hoping that whoever was there enjoyed a good show. Apparently such was the case. Chalk up another testament to the virtues of sticking with your forecast area.

In the meantime, we relaxed on a well maintained dirt road 7 NW Hoyt: just us, the wind, occasional distant thunder, and a horde of small black beetles migrating eastward as if to run away from the slowly approaching storm.

For a short time, this was a place to rediscover the wide views of Great Plains skies, treeless and filled with the tumult of convective power, hardly a building or wire in sight. It wasn't hard to step back in time and envision this sky seen by the pioneer families venturing for the first time into this big and open landscape, storm and mountains looming in the near and distant west, obstacles temporary and permanent looming above and beyond, respectively, compelling a decision to forge forward or to turn back, or perhaps even to set root here in a place that was, at once, starkly beautiful and unmerciful.

So we observed and imagined, simultaneously appreciative yet wishing for much more from the atmosphere. A dense core with occasional "rainshaft-nadoes" gave someone some valuable rain as more thunder crackled overhead from unseen anvil crawlers. Our storm(s) developed a fair sized updraft base and an inflow tail and tried to rotate; they may have, weakly, before eventually gusting out.

A new storm formed along the NE edge of the complex near Brush, with a somewhat colorful shelf cloud. Still, we were disappointed as we headed back into Fort Morgan, wandering the roads between there and Brush in vain attempt to find short-fuse rainbow photography views unobstructed by trees, wires and buildings. [Yes, we found perhaps the one area of eastern CO where this is a major problem.]

However, as often is the case, our disappointment turned to elation. We finally found a fairly open view about 2 E Ft. Morgan. A few nice sunset photos were followed by an absolutely dazzling show of anvil crawlers and mammatus from dusk to dark. The back side of this MCS was strobing almost continually, with at least 2-3 good crawlers per minute shooting across a sky of mammatus and ebbing twilight. I shot more crawler photos in 30 minutes than in all my years of chasing prior as the last evening light faded to night. Occasionally a CG would erupt beneath, but offset about 45 degrees, from the locus of a simultaneous crawler discharge.

Much of the action originated from the same region to the E or ESE, as the complex slowly receded, making the choice of sky sector an easy one. Still, even a 17-35 mm lens wasn't enough to capture some of the most brilliant discharges that swept almost from horizon to zenith and beyond, while reaching north and south in search of electrical equilibrium. About half the crawlers were accompanied by a single, staccato CG, with few or no forks (still another fine example), reigniting a longstanding curiosity I've had about the connection, if any, between the two forms of lightning strokes.

A short drive back to Denver and several days of R&R followed before the storm intercept vacation would wrap up.

===== Roger =====

Cumulonimbus Barfus Maximus Nebraskus

Southeast WY, West NE and Northeast CO -- 10 Jun 6

SHORT: Long drive for a little bit of good photography, a short-lived/high-based supercell near BFF, no legit tornadoes, and a lot of dusty outflow between east WY NE Panhandle and NE CO. Abundant small hail found after isolated high based storm near Cope CO.

LONG: Although there was enough shear for supercells (and we did see one), one of my fears was that the large scale ascent ahead of the west WY trough may arrive too soon. It did.

At noon MDT, the sky over east WY (behind the dryline-like surface feature) began filling in fast with high-based, fuzzy storms all-quadrants. The first of many of these was visible as we headed into Lusk WY, at 12:26 p.m. MDT (looking SW). Note that time, dear reader. That's too blasted early!

Soon, more high-based storms formed all around east WY, spewing some beautiful CGs but also a lot of cold outflow. This is when the realization hit that the chance of seeing a legitimate tornado for us today was near zero. A patriotic, red-white-and-blue windmill framed one neatly lit cell S of Lusk, and then it was off to the races to get and stay ahead of the outflow.

Turning ESE out of Torrington, we noticed a high based storm distant ESE, near BFF, with a broad, shallow wall cloud. [No photos...I was driving, it was distant and did not impress me from that angle.]

As we crossed the Nebraska line, the pretty lighting of the arcus behind us caught our interest more than the high-based supercell near BFF, and we stopped to get some panoramics of the former (looking W and the companion shot looking WNW).

A few miles further down the road, near Morrill, we heard that the lofty little supercell to our ESE was TOR warned! It did have a legit meso that wrapped some precip filaments around its W side, but there were three problems:
1. A base way too high,
2. Undercutting from its own storm scale outflow, and
3. A building, mesobeta scale outflow surge about to smash to smithereens whatever remained of the storm.

After turning S from Bridgeport toward SNY we noticed a pronounced blocky lowering with a pendant, conically shaped cloud feature centered beneath. The problem was: It was behind the arcus cloud, made of thick scud, and not rotating. Shortly after that we passed some chasers parked nearby, atop a hill, on a side road. Elke said, "Somebody's going to report that as a tornado."

She has a keen sense for the presence of incompetent observers, because not 30 seconds later, the NWR alarm sounded with a tornado warning...for that storm, based on "spotters reported a developing tornado" in that very location. We pulled over and I took a few documentary photos of the sorry excuse for a "developing tornado" as it quickly devolved from solid scud into ragged garbage, then went away. The whole feature lasted less than two minutes and was about as tornadic as hoarfrost on the beard of a buffalo.

We stayed to do some equine photography with the arcus in the background, in a classical Great Plains scene. A herd of very friendly horses, initially on a hilltop about 1/4 mile away, galloped right over to beg our company and, in one case, vigorous human scratching of its apparently itchy forehead. Their company was all too brief. Within minutes, the gust front that had been several miles away overtook us with thick choking dust, 58 deg F surface temps, and howling NW winds -- ahead of the arcus. Horses and humans cleared the area in a hurry.

Meanwhile the "tornado" warning suddenly vanished from NWR. Imagine that. "Developing tornado" -- my _ss! Whoever reported that needs to go back to basic spotting class to be taught that tornadoes actually do rotate. Oh, and they don't tend to occur behind arcus clouds rising over deep, cold outflow. Duh.

Southward to Sidney we cruised, stopping briefly to look at the visual manifestation of a LEWP off to our NNE. Now, on rare occasion, *those* sometimes spawn spinups, but this one got undercut so fast it didn't have a chance. Maybe others up the line toward Cherry County did, but we had no interest in racing east for hours across NE trying to keep ahead of a deep, mesobeta scale (and growing) blob of surging outflow that felt like some weird mix of Saharan particulates in Antarctic katabatics.

"Spotters report a line of thunderstorms capable of tornadoes" was the last thing we heard from that NWR as we roared off into NE CO, trying to find isolated development S of the horrendous pile of outflow. Dusty gusts near SNY may have been severe, causing us to struggle to stay on the road at times in a heavy, low-profile sedan. That said, I won't venture an estimate since neither my estimates nor anyone else's on this planet are reliable to within +-20 kt at those speeds.

N of Sterling we passed what appeared to me 5 or 6 TTU mobile mesonet vehicles and, just a little ways down the road, a non-DOW portable radar (Howie?).

We did intercept the back side of a small SVR-warned Cb near Cope that had a pretty backshear as viewed from the N, but also, a very high base. Precip curtains prevented us from viewing the updraft region until we let it get SE of us, and man, was it ever high based. A good deal of hail that was marble sized (but conical or candy-corn shaped) covered the ground along US 36 in the Cope/Joes area, on both sides of the Washington/Yuma County lines.

We ended the storm day with some dinner in Limon, and photography of the old grain elevator under sunset-lit ACCAS. Cold NNE winds soon blasted us there, two hours and 100 miles removed from our last encounter with the same outflow current near Sterling. Even in the north suburbs of DEN, after 11 p.m., we got a shot of the outflow pool sloshing in from the ENE. That gave us nearly 12 hours in and out of outflow from the same huge mess of storms.

===== Roger =====

Volcanic Tower and Convective Power

Northeastern WY, 9 Jun 6

SHORT: Abundant wildflower, Devils Tower and convective power photography. Intercepted tornado warned supercell between Sundance and Newcastle WY. Probable tornado observed, numerous daytime CGs photographed. Great dinner and sunset.

LONG: This was one of the finest Great Plains chase/photography days I've ever had, with or without a probable tornado in the western Black Hills of Wyoming.

The day began with a great breakfast cooked by the 81 year old female proprietor of Bob's Cafe (or "Bob Afe," depending on which side of the sign you view). We highly recommend this place in Belle Fourche -- a 1940s/1950s era diner where the locals have gathered for generations. One of these locals we befriended was a SD native just returned home from many years in Maine, a keen and highly talented outdoor photographer named Bob Clements. We ended up spending an hour or so with Bob, talking photography and getting the grand tour of his future gallery, in a musty old downtown brownstone that he is renovating himself. If you ever make it to Belle Fourche, and Bob's gallery is open, check it out.

Next came the drive to Devils Tower, which conveniently was on the way and very close to our forecast area of interest in SW SD and NE WY. We spent the midday hours photographing wildflowers and their surroundings, horses, sweeping landscape scenes across verdant valleys, and numerous scenes around the tower itself.

On the way to the tower, we noticed anvils streaming off convection unseen in the distant SW. Without live radar data, I still was (correctly) confident this was the result of high-based and rather moisture-starved storms around the Bighorns. An outflow-reinforced cold front had moved through, but not too cold to allow storms to form once the sun heated the air mass enough. The northeast and east winds behnd the front also would advect more moisture into the area with time. For the time being, though, I knew we had a little while to hang out near the tower and wait for better storms to form, closer by. So we did.

We found a great overlook a mile W of Devils Tower where only one other person came by in an hour, great for afternoon shots of the tower with not a single human artifact of any kind in view. Under the lazy drift of floating cumulus clouds, the tower's appearance never was the same from any given minute to the next, and we relished its many moods of light and shadow. I also shot time lapse video of the tower in the right foreground and distant cumulonimbi building in the background, over SD.

Those weren't our target storms, though, so we stayed put and experimented with other ways to view and photograph this amazing volcanic landmark. Patiently we waited for more storms that had formed over the Bighorns region to move our way and into better moisture. When the anvils moved overhead and the western skies grew dark with the looming bulk of robust, newer storms, it was time to go.

While driving about 10 W Sundance, we heard a SVR from RAP for what was then a tail-end cell over NW Weston County, moving E. Within a minute or two we found a high overlook from which we barely could see the updraft base about 25-30 miles SW, a dense core to its N, an inflow tail to its SE, and ragged attempts at a wall cloud.

We raced toward Sundance to get in intercept position, deciding to go SE of Sundance on the road to Newcastle, in order to stay ahead of the cell. It was evident the storm was a supercell, now right-moving E toward the unchaseable morass of the Black Hills. The roads were few, and the gamble was this:

1. Go SW of Sundance on WY-116 toward Upton and get closer to it faster (but spend much less time watching it) or

2. Head SE of town into higher terrain, temporarily losing view of it around Sundance and Inyan Kara Mountains, but getting in position to watch it longer from more of a distance...if we could find a good vantage looking SW.

We deiced to go with option 2, about the time a TOR warning blared through NWR. We were entangled with the town of Sundance at the time, unable to view the base due to buildings, trees and hills. For the next 16-18 minutes we couldn't see under the base S of Sundance either, thanks to rolling higher terrain W of the road.

I was wondering if my eastern decision would hose us out of a chance to see a tornado, while driving mile afer mile with the SW sky obstructed. This was very frustrating, but the annoyance proved to be blissfully ephemeral. Motoring S on the spaghetti road, through the rolling western foothills of the Black Hills, we finally found a good westward viewing spot 5 NW of "Four Corners."

The supercell had something of a wet, outflow-dominant appearance when we first took position. Soon it sported a very low wall cloud 10-15 miles to our WSW (wide angle view), which intermittently wrapped in rain, then re-emerged. To its ESE (our SW-SSW) a heavy and elongated rear-flank core appeared, along with other, newer updraft bases. This gave the whole process the look of a supercell evolving into either a deep LEWP notch or an HP "Pac Man" type storm, with the mesocyclone in the inner corner of Pac Man's mouth.

At times it looked like a "meso on the ground," though it was hard to see true ground thanks to a gentle rise about 7-8 miles to our W. One thick pile of tail cloud material appeared to form near the ground and race southward into the wall cloud. Meanwhile, all sorts of wild looking bands and patches of cloud material overhead and into the storm, along with the green landscape of grassland and broken short pine, and an astounding barrage of strobe-style lightning bolts, made for wonderful wide-angle landscape photography.

A small core formed SSE of the meso and grew bigger, merging with the rear-flank (wrap-around hook) core until the meso itself became a deeply occluding notch. The strengthening inflow felt cold and was -- 65-67 deg F, but it was from the E, and our elevation was 5700 feet. Normalize those temps at lower elevations, or put them in at our elevation on a sounding diagram, and the thermal characteristics actually look pretty nice for supercell inflow.

The lightning with this storm was impressive, even for this 21-year storm intercept veteran. Dozens of CGs popped over the valley and ridges between us and the meso, but at a safe distance. Between Elke and me, we captured 20 or more in our hand-held photos, thanks to the ridiculous repetitiveness of the flashes. Several times we each shot the same lightning strike using only a finger reaction to the first flash. But that's not all. Get this: I was able to take two separate, all-manual photos of one CG (the first one linked above)! I've never done this before, nor heard of it being done. That's how long the strobing lasted with some of them. At times, it was like a giant atmospheric discotheque over there.

What is it about the electrical layout and resistance characteristics of supercell storms that causes some to produce strobing lightning strokes one after another, each lasting 2-3 seconds, while others simply hurl super-quick staccato bolts hither and yon?

Meanwhile, the meso tightened up dramatically and shed some precip from its E side, forming another very low wall cloud, scud rising fast up the N side. The horizontal and differential cloud tag motions got rapid as well, more so than several tornadic storms I've seen; and I was beginning to wonder if this one could spin something up before it got rain-wrapped. Thick precip already surrounded the meso in every direction except NE-E, but fortunately, we were tucked in the "notch" ENE of it.

Cloud base rotation under the wall cloud also became obvious, and at times, quite intense, as seen through zoom lenses due to the distance. At 5:07 pm MDT (6:07 pm CDT) one very suspicious lowering -- tapered, fuzzy and rapidly evolving -- developed under the wall cloud and appeared to reach ground, though the terrain precluded irrefutable confirmation.

I ran to the car to get binoculars, which revealed this feature as a furiously rotating funnel, at times extending below the level of the low ridge in the distance. I managed to snap a few photos in between careful eyeball coverage, the best being one which also captured one of those strobing CGs by chance (here's a super-enhanced version).

Was it a tornado? I'm quite confident despite the limitations of terrain and distance. Probabilistically speaking, I'll say at least 90%. It's hard to conceive otherwise given the persistence of the funnel, as well as cloud motions both internal and ambient to the feature.

By 5:10 p.m. MDT, a thick bear's cage wrapped around the wall cloud from the S, leaving it a mystery what was going on behind the orbiting rain curtains. Something suspicious might still be apparent in this shot at 5:11 p.m. (super-enhanced contrast version), but after that, the whole mesocyclonic circulation got too deeply buried in rain to infer much.

We reeled off a few more CG-over-landscape shots, and the electrical action and cores started getting close (wide angle). The last CG that I dared to shoot instantly ignited an orange fireball on the next hillside. I didn't want to be next, so in the car we went.

Forward motion of the storms began to accelerate, and it appeared an MCS was spontaneously developing all around us. With the only east option extending into the depths of the Black Hills, and the sky erupting into MCS ALQDS, we decided to call off the chase and head SSW to Newcastle for dinner and lodging. [Also recommended -- the Fountain Inn with free wi-fi, and collocated LaCosta Mexican Restaurant, with excellent steak-and-shrimp fajitas!]

After a great dinner we did some photography along WY 16, NW of town. This included a high-based, elevated storm in the golden light, near an old missile silo. As it moved toward its SE and to our S, a rainbow and some postcrepusculars became visible.

Clouds to the WNW blocked a lot of the best sunset light, but we enjoyed it immensely anyway. What couldn't be photographed was the earthy-spicy smell of rain-washed sage, an aroma of life's renewal rising from an arid land newly drenched, the joyful warble of hundreds of meadowlarks resonating across the Thunder Basin grasslands, the cool moist breezes carrying these scents and sounds to us and through us.

Back at the hotel I couldn't resist taking couple of twilight and nighttime shots of their tornado shaped fountain, bathed in spotlights of alternating colors.

We had a long and amazing day, and slept very well that night... almost too well!

===== Roger =====

Pleasant Supercell in a Pleasant Landscape

High Plains and Hills of Southeast MT, 8 Jun 6.

Our results didn't match what happened 40 years before to VOF Johnson, who witnessed the Topeka F5 tornado on 8 Jun 66, but we were satisfied nonetheless.

After making a forecast for this event, general target area being the eastern border of WY-MT near a warm front, we had time for a morning tour of Fort Robinson (i.e, 1, 2, 3, 4). Then we headed into GCC the scenic way -- through Lusk and Douglas, and as promised, across the Thunder Basin National Grassland. High-based "pancakus" and car thermometer readings soaring far into the 90s told us we needed to go N of GCC, into MT, to greet the warm front and any convection that could develop or propagate thereon.

A brief pit stop and data perusal at GCC showed a new storm rolling out of the northern Bighorns toward where US-412 and I-90 meet. Even though it would be two hours or more before we could get to this storm, or its progeny, we decided to go N to Broadus then W on 412 toward Lame Deer to intercept what was left. Distant anvil material was visible to the W from WY/MT 59, on that long but very scenic drive between GCC and Broadus. At Broadus we turned W, the anvil canopy climbing ever higher toward and above us, and above the beautiful rolling hills of the Custer National Forest.

As it turns out, the original storm indeed had turned to garbage, manifesting its detritus as murky slate condensate and fuzzy rain shafts on the northwest horizon. By the time we reached Ashland, however, a second supercell became diffusely visible to the WSW, over the low hills between Ashland and Lame Deer. A small wall cloud developed then went away. Then the fun began.

For an hour or more, Elke and I parked at one spot ~4 W Ashland MT, viewing a picturesque and tiered supercell (23 mm wide angle or 50 mm f3.5 shot 8 minutes later) as it marched and twirled steadily toward its NE, over the rich grasslands and short-pine stands to our W, NW and N. The storm seemed to surround and then embed itself within a vast sheet of elevated stratocumulus, which if viewed from above probably had castellanus-like tops.

Several times this storm produced fakenadoes of rain-cooled scud, rising and moving horizontally but not rotating. Look carefully at lower left in this wide angle view to the WNW (or a strongly enhanced zoom+crop) at one of these "scudnadoes," which made me look really hard through the binoculars, just to make sure.

A member of the Northern Cheyenne tribe and his family pulled up and asked me if what he had just driven past was a tornado, since the cloud was on the ground. I started to explain to him why it wasn't, when another and very similar scudnado showed up, as if on cue for the atmosphere's daily lab lesson. Satisfied with the storm's encore demonstration of tornadic fakery, but maybe a little disappointed at not having witnessed the real thing, he said good-bye and zoomed off into Ashland. Still more scudnadoes periodically appeared along the storm's southern (rear-flank) gust front.

Meanwhile, Elke and I alternated between snapping shot after shot, running time lapse video (my first video in two months or more) and simply watching the storm together amidst the warbling of the Western meadowlarks and the resonant rumbles of thunder deep within the slowly swirling supercellular cloudmass. One feature appeared that I may never have seen before: a thick spiral swath of ACCAS (not sfc-based cumulus) leading into the storm from the S ( as seen looking NNW). We also saw a nice rack of Kelvin-Helmholtz waves along the top of one of the striated plates when the storm was W of Ashland.

The storm finally gusted out to our N. After I collected some rocks from the ridges, we briefly headed back into Broadus, then back W again to watch two more small, rotating cells at sunset before they also got undercut.

We landed in Belle Fourche for the night at a motel being renovated by a recent Polish-German immigrant. [The guy had a Polish accent, but Elke conversed a little with him in German.] The Kings Inn probably is the cheapest place to stay in Belle Fourche with wi-fi, but the lime green paint in our rooms harkened back to the era when the younger siblings of the hippies were beginning to disco-dance.

===== Roger =====

Low Expectations, Low Results

Central-Western SD, NW NE Panhandle, 7 Jun 6.

Yeah, this day was basically a bustola for us as well as many other storm observers.

We left Chamberlain late in the morning, loosely targeting the area S or SE of the Black Hills near the differential heating or outflow boundary from onngoing, elevated convection. It looked like rather lame supercell potential, so we weren't motivated to hurry. We spent the noontime hour visiting Wall Drug for the first time. If you're amused by western kitsch, you'll blow a belly gasket there.

I did buy the book "A Long Way from Home" by Tom Brokaw -- one of the few TV personalities for whom I ever have sustained any respect. It should be an enjoyable read about growing up in mid-twentieth century South Dakota, as told from the perspective of a plainspoken, intelligent, sensible, well-grounded, common sense fellow who appears to have retained those great Middle American qualities through his celebrity adulthood.

As for storms...not much to say. The best convective action we saw all day was the booming, tall CGs slamming ferociously into the adjacent fields, from elevated noontime convection between Chamberlain and Kadoka. I did shoot one really sweet example of some undulatus features in what Steve Corfidi calls "warm advection clouds." This was on the back (W) side of the elevated storms.

The farther W we went across south South Dakota, the less impressed we were with the day's setup, as the deep and intensely heated and mixed boundary layer brutalized the NE Panhandle (103 deg F at BFF!). Although we wandered down through the Badlands toward the storms along the outflow boundary, I wasn't too surprised they were outflow-spewing multicells (the stuff moving S through Cherry County) or orphan anvils (everything farther W around CDR, where we stayed for the night).

Later that night, in the motel in CDR, I read of an interesting event planned for July: An alcohol blockade by members of several tribes (including the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma) on the SD/NE border, where a road leads from the Nebraska town of Whiteclay into the Pine Ridge Reservation. It seems the Sioux leaders have had enough of Whiteclay liquor stores supplying booze to the residents of the reservation, where alcohol is forbidden. Passing through Whiteclay, it seemed to us the only reason for the town's existence these days is to funnel liquor to the bootleggers who run it illegally across that border. If a blockade is what it takes, I don't blame them. It's their land and they have every right to do so. I hope it works.

===== Roger =====

Elke's First Birthday-Tornado

5 Jun 6, near Forestburg SD

A very confusing morning forecast picture, complicated by the presence of a big MCS chewing its way SE through the previous day's most-favored forecast zone of eastern-southern NE, became more clear as the day progressed. We decided early against the CO upslope area because of weaker moisture and midlevel flow, although the prospect of potentially missing a photogenic High Plains supercell was somewhat troubling.

So we (Elke and I, with a vanload of human and canine chasers in caravan) left VTN headed east, with the intention of cruising toward ONL and refining our target area from there.

DO NOT, I mean DO NOT, take US-20 between VTN and ONL this month! The road is being resurfaced, and we encountered no fewer than four one-lane stretches regulated by pilot cars and flagmen. We had to stop and wait at each of the four, the last (easternmost) one being the longest, and whose pilot car driver was content to average 15 mph. Total delay was about an hour because of this mess.

[I'll spare you, for now, the rant on how this wouldn't be necessary if they would just build roads the right way in the first place...]

We arrived in ONL for a quick lunch and a look at data at the library, where it became evident that the best juxtaposition of midlevel flow, low level moist axis, sfc heating, weakening CINH, buoyancy, deep-layer shear and frontal lift the next several hours would be over east-central/SE SD.

Off to the N we went, passing by some "sucker towers" W-NW of ONL. As we approached the SD border, thick towers became evident to the distant N, and they glaciated quickly into a Cb. This was going to be the target storm; here was nothing deeply convective for the 80 miles between us and the storm. As we closed in, the storm turned right and moved SE past HON. [No photos during the run north...I was driving!]

A distant, high base with a broad, bowl-shaped lowered area came into view to our NNW along US 281, W of Woonsocket. This high based meso quickly became undercut by its own RFD outflow as we closed in and turned E toward Woonsocket. We drove under the old meso with the intent of getting E, then S, of the whole storm as the new occlusion matured near Woonsocket. At the time the base above looked reasonably benign.

As we got a few miles E of Woonsocket, however, suddenly things changed. We got E of the SE-ward moving meso and had a 4-D visual treat.

The cloud base lowered a good bit as a rain-filled RFD surge wrapped around the W and S sides of the meso. The circulation tightened dramatically, the LCL apparently lowered by the circulations' pressure drop and is ingestion of a mix of rain-cooled RFD air and warm inflow from the E. [Winds were E at 20 kt along this stretch of road, indicating storm-enlarged hodographs beyond what characterized the ambient, mesobeta scale boundary layer kinematics.]

Horizontal motions became extreme -- some of the most intense I've seen -- comparable to those in the Hill City wall cloud from 9 Jun 5, for those who were witness to that supercellular festival. Basically the meso was on the ground, the motions quite intense around the cloud rim above it, and it had that look like it was going to "tornady any minute." Dense plumes of dark SD dirt and dust roared southward around the W rim of the meso (looking W from 1 SE Forestburg) for 15-20 minutes as this merry-go-round was going on, and occasional lighter plumes moved in front from S-N. There *might* have been some brief, small spin-ups embedded in there, but nothing I would ever call certifiably tornadic...yet.

The meso churned along toward the SE and got more rain-wrapped (looking SW), putting us deeper into the vault and "notch" region, with CGs striking close. To keep abeam, we then moved E and S to a position along SD-37, about 5 ESE Forestburg.

While driving S, at 1645 CDT, Keith Brown (in their van) and I each noticed columns of condensation buried in the rain, orbiting a common center, about 3 miles to our SW. We started shouting at one another about it over the radio, and began to find a safe pull-off spot.

One of the vortices (the southernmost, as we were looking SW) manifest itself as a thick tilted cone in full ground contact, the others thinner and more translucent vertical columns to its N -- a diffuse, rain-wrapped, multiple-vortex tornado. They captured some of it on video.

In the time it took us to find a safe pull-off, get out, and grab our cameras, the tornado got enshrouded deeper in rain and was barely visible. By the time I was able to snap a photo, the condensation tubes were gone...of course! This shot looks SW at whatever was left of it in the rain and murk -- a "tornado cyclone" at this stage. A severely enhanced version probably doesn't help much but is included anyway.

All the while, cloud base rotation was extreme, scud ripping rapidly toward the N on the near side and from N-S on the rear of the circulation. The tornado itself probably was not much more intense than the "meso on the ground" from earlier, but simply had manifest itself in a different way visually (as suction vortices) for a minute or two. It got buried in rain fast, but a spotter or chaser several miles to our S reported it as well, to his NW, at 1652 CDT (after this shot and this one, where the dreaded green core started to descend on the N side of the meso).

I estimated the tornado's position at 6 SSE of Forestburg and relayed the report to FSD through work (cell phone coverage was spotty). Later, the FSD warning forecaster told me he would head out the next day (6 Jun) to check for damage, but it's in a fairly remote part of the James River valley. [NOTE: We didn't find much damage the next day in a cursory zigzag of section roads, but some of it included uprooted trees and large limbs blown down toward the N on what would have been the E side of the circulation.]

After our tornadic excitement, we went farther E and S, roaring down SD 25 to get ahead of the storm again. My moment of deja-vu was passing the very spots where I first noticed then photographed the Spencer tornado, a little over 8 years before. By the time we got into good view of the storm again, about 20 minutes had elapsed and the character had changed markedly (looking SW from near Epiphany).

As we got close again, our storm vomited huge amounts of outflow (looking NW from near Farmer), gusting out fast and sending broad plumes of outflow dust across the SD prairie. A gustnado near Emery, and that was it. Here's a shot of the "5 Dudes and a Dog Chase Team" in front of the storms' carcass, looking NNW near Bridgewater.

Elke got to see her first birthday tornado, albeit briefly, and we finished the chase day taking some in-cloud and cloud-to-air lightning pictures after dark, in the SW corner of MN (looking NE, with stars). It was a fine and rewarding day of storm observing in its own right, and brought back lots of 8 year old memories for me as well.

===== Roger =====

Sandhills Bustola

3 Jun 6, Nebraska Sandhills

Capping did us in, with apparently insufficient concentration of diabatically driven ascent. I'll largely blame the thick cirrus cover because we were awfully close to having a supercell.

We stuck with our forecast area instead of heading for the more certain initiation in SD (but crappy flow and, ultimately, linear garbage spewing outflow). A few hours along the road between VTN-Thedford yielded Cu and occasional TCu along a pronounced confluence line that was aligned NNE-SSW across Cherry County. When a decent hole finally opened up in the Ci, along the west side of a long-lived standing wave, slightly deeper towers formed with wider bases, and even glaciated a couple times. As we eased N toward our lodging in VTN, we kept an eye in the rear on two subsequent Cb. Each looked similar and was very short-lived, and may have not precipitated to ground.

We did shoot a few documentary photos of these processes, as well as a nice, thick chunk of a circumzenithal arc near the Nebraska National Forest, a lost Sandhills highway next to the new one, and some neat Great Plains Americana.

However... My laptop suddenly has begun having a disturbing problem (blue screen of death, with cryptic "MACHINE CHECK EXCEPTION" error anywhere from 3-30 minutes after turning it on), and Elke's has meager hard drive space. So photo links will have to wait until we get an external hard drive and can offload them.

[EDIT: Photo links now have been made after arriving home.]