6/17/12 SD/MN Storm Chase

We chased eastern SD and western MN on Sunday. We ended up in Ortonville, MN minutes before what we thought was a routine bow echo/squall line. It ingested a large region of warm moist air and hit a pocket of high helicity just before it reached us and took on supercellular characteristics. We ended up getting hit by the mesocyclone's ground circulation and narrowly got missed by the tornado. Looking back at the images we could clearly see a tornado on the ground. Here is a sequential walk through our day...

Storms initiating in NE SD

Storm's cold pools organizing into a MCS

Shelf cloud emerging at the base

Gorgeous structure

Bow echo had a clear bookend vorticy to the north

Meso moving into Ortonville

Tornado visible at the base of the storm. Debris cloud left of the light pole, funnel to the right

Cropped version of above photo

Tornado moving farther to the east/south and stacked plates above it

Cropped version of the above photo showing the tornado with funnel a bit more visible to the right of the pole

Amazing structure and a huge hail core

 

Greenness! And the gas station we took cover at

Next storm just east of Watertown, SD. Clear base with a wall cloud and rainbow

Storm beginning to fall apart

Pretty sunset looking the opposite way

Zoomed in version

Storm is still trying

Very pretty backside of the cumulonimbus

And thus, ended our day. Kind of a disappointment because we were really hoping for some isolated supercells. Everything developed to fast and the cap gave way to a massive amount of "crap"-vection that helped the storms go linear quickly. We happened to get very lucky by being at the right place at the right time and were able to bag that tornado. It is good to finally get the first tornado of 2012 though!

Chip

5/22/12 North Dakota Chase

Started out with an initial target of northern South Dakota. High cirrus clouds made us doubt our initial position and we drifted farther north to just east of Bismark, ND. My first time in the state! We waited in a chaser convergence as storms near Minot went tornadic. They were just too far out of our reach though. After a bit more patience, we watched a storm fire in SD near the border and split. The right mover fell apart while, surprisingly, the left mover held itself together. I have always had a thing for left movers, they just seem to fascinate me. We drifted southeast and intercepted the cell as it began to weaken. We were lucky enough to see a small wall cloud and RFD on this guy, rotating the wrong way! So cool! Another cell formed just to the north and we watched it go from birth to a full blown supercell! Super cool too! As that storm weakened, storms started firing all around and a heck of a lightning show ensued!

State Capital in Pierre, SD

Left mover from a distance!

Closer, it had a small RFD cut and baby wall cloud! (just above and right of the trees)

RFD cut with outflow

Left mover died...

Small cell fires north of the left mover.

Downdraft stengthens.

Strengthens even more.

Repositioned to get a view of the base to the south of the forward flank downdraft and got a view of this wall cloud.

It looked pretty good at one point!

Here is a timelapse of the base. If you look carefully you can see the rotation. Brighter frames are because of lightning during the image. These are 5" exposures.

Then it went outflow dominant and developed a shelf cloud.

Another view of the FFD

Begin lightning barrage!

Stacked image of many shots of the updraft.

Well, I hope you enjoyed! I will update this blog again tomorrow with a few pics from WY and high based storms I intercepted as well as the Venus transit across the sun from yesterday! Visit again!
Chip!

5/20/12 Solar Eclipse from Rapid City, SD

A partial solar eclipse occurred on Sunday and I went out and got photos of it with Dinosaur Hill in the foreground. I held a #11 welders lens in front of the camera's lens to get these pictures. I didn't look at the sun directly! Never look at it directly! Enjoy!

The sun the day before. Notice the three sunpots on it!

Light refractions with the welders lens being held in front of the camera lens.

Sun pillar! During the eclipse!

A prehistoric solar eclipse!

A reverse reflection by angling the glass!

Sunspot sneaking through the ending eclipse and the cloud cover.

And then the sun went behind the clouds...

And it set for the day...

What a cool experience! I haven't ever gotten photos of the sun before, let alone close ups and with an eclipse! I have to thank Pam's husband Don for giving me the welders glass to look at the sun. It made it enjoyable for all of us and proved to provide some cool effects when you turned it certain directions!

Visit again to see hopefully a good storm chase recap of tomorrows chase in SD/ND!

Chip