Chase Log: 2011: Week 2

6/06/11, Butte County, SD (1 Funnel)
6/06/11, Lawrence County, SD (4 Funnels)
6/09/11, Wabaunsee County, KS (1 Funnel)

Details:

6/5/11

Pick up tour group from Finland in Dallas, TX for a very short chase. We then drive to Mitchell, SD. Very long drive.

6/6/11

We head west on 90 in the am and hope for storms to fire in the afternoon. We end up near Newell, SD in western South Dakota waiting for storms to fire. Storms finally fire in Wyoming and start heading north, NNE. We end up going to Belle Fourche, and on the way into town we intercept our first cell and it looks like it produced a funnel. We were pretty far away, but it was still a good sign. As we get into town the cell starts to weaken. There is a follow up storm to the south, so we head south to Spearfish on 85. At the intersection of 85 and 90 we watch a severe t-storm produce a beautiful wall cloud with a couple of funnels(Pictured). Then we head to Deadwood for the night for a great steak and some needed rest.

6/7/11

Today we end up heading east then north trying to get into SE North Dakota. We cut across SD on 90 and then north on 29 in Sioux Falls. In Fargo I figure out that the storms will not form out in the warm sector. There is a small cluster of cold core storms moving east across southern North Dakota. So we target them. Back South on 29 and west on 46. We catch up on the storms and when they pulse they have rotating wall clouds. We look at the storms for a couple of cycles, before we break off the chase and look for hotels in South Dakota.

6/8/11

We stay overnight in Watertown, South Dakota . Then we head south on 29 and then east on 20. It looks like storms will fire from the South west corner of Iowa to the northeast. We head towards Des Moines with the thought that the storms would be stronger in the southwest corner of the state with energy coming off of the rockies. Well the first storms fire over near Waterloo. We would not be able to get to them in time for tornadoes but they look good on radar. After waiting some time for storms to form, some cu go up to our southwest and we decide to chase them. We are in great position to intercept them. We go west on 80 to get away from the city. When we get to the area of cu it has a little rain on it but it is just not going to produce. Then some cells are starting to pop around Des Moines, so we turn around and head to Des Moines. We get off 80 on 65 and head Northeast. We end up on multiple severe storms on the back roads of Iowa. We ended up in Grinnell, IA for dinner after seeing multiple wall clouds one of which was very large with a stacked plates look (pictured).

6/9/11

We start to head for Kansas in the am by going west on 80 then south on 35. We work our way through some severe storms in central IA and then head south. When we get to 36 and head west and make it into Kansas. Some storms have formed down by by Wichita, but they are just a little too far south of our target area. I am thinking that they will not be tornadic. We stick to our target area where there should be a better set up. We end up in Seneca, KS waiting for storms to fire. Now it looks like another batch of storms are firing back in MO by St. Joe. It was too far between to go back to MO or to get to the southern storms. Then finally a cell started to fire in our target area to our south we work our way over to 99 and head south. Crossing over 70 there is a very impressive display of Mammatus clouds (Pictured) to our south. We are trying to cut out in front of the storm and it starts to weaken and another cell blows up in front of the original cell. So we split off on 4 and head east and we end up getting another rotating wall cloud. Unfortunately the original cell gusts itself out so hard that it kills our new updraft. Well in the process there was a funnel that briefly came down from the cell. (Pictured)

6/10/11

Well this is a shorted chase and we head home after one positioning day and 4 chase days. Looking forward to some more fall chasing and next year!