Atmospheric Science Club at UWM

Storm Chase - 2000

 

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TEAM 2 Chase Highlights

This year's storm chase really made us realize just how spoiled we were on the 1999 chase.  However, we had two very good days this year without seeing spectacular storm structure or tornadoes.

Tuesday, May 30

        A dreary beginning to the day at first...drizzle and fog in Valentine, NE with temperatures in the 50's combined with strong CAA in SE Wyoming/NE Colorado with a persistent stratus deck. The only ray of light was in Iowa where a moderate risk was later zoned along a stationary front with great dynamics and instability. After a noon data stop at North Platte's Library (along with other numerous chasers), we chose to head east to Omaha and then check the latest data while there...wow, it paid off!  We caught a supercell northwest of Des Moines just past 8:30 which had numerous funnel and wall cloud reports. A brief tornado was also reported. More SVR cells backbuilt behind the initial cell which we were able to observe quite successfully. Our viewing was hampered due to fading sunlight, but we were in a perfect position for night spotting. NOTE: we remained safely to the west of the updraft base and were aware of the surroundings at all times. Our highlights were: 4 or 5 power flashes from CGs, two persistent wall clouds, clearly defined RFD entrainment, several TORs (though none witnessed), and numerous bugs! We caught a motel in Des Moines and ate a late dinner at Perkins after a decent show for the evening.
 

Overshooting top

Power flash from CG

1st wall cloud during TOR WRNG

Same wall cloud later on

2nd wall cloud from new cell

Saturday, June 3

        We grabbed our data at the Sioux City Library and decided we needed to head west for what could be a decent setup involving a dryline and weak short wave trough combination over western NE. Also, warm frontogenesis was forecast to occur in north-central NE and SD later in the afternoon in conjunction with a modest LLJ. We stopped in Valentine, NE later in the afternoon to get more data and figured that we should continue heading a little west. By the time we got to Merriman, NE (northwest NE) we saw towers to our west and southwest...but they were not all that well-developed so we opted that the dryline might not cooperate and decided to head north/east into SD for the warm front activity.  We took 18 east to scout out any development in SD and amazingly noticed some nice towers to our east.  The only problem was that these towers were approximately 90 miles away from us (some were the tops of developing Cbs!). We continued east and eventually saw a few anvils take shape throughout the broken line of convection.
        At this time, a blue box was issued for western NE but we kept heading east.  Eventually, a blue box was established for northeastern NE and SD.  As we neared to within 20 miles, the primary cell (Cell A) organized even further.  By about 8pm, we were northwest of Niobrara, NE viewing a nice rain-free base to our southeast with a somewhat unorganized wall cloud (earlier on we were fighting trees to catch a glimpse of a very stout, compact lowering in this same region). Tornado warnings were in place for a cell further southeast of us (shown by 2nd flanking line in the distance), but we continued to observe our storm explode with a flanking line along with new storms developing just to our north. The storm motion was to the southeast, so we remained to the WSW of the main updraft as a route to the south was not available. The storms had been severe for about an hour or so, so as we continued east we passed the damage path of large hail. The road was completely littered with leaves and branches from the 2.5" hailstones that pounded the area. As the evening wore on, we took some nice video of cell C as well as intense lightning from the severe storm to our ESE which still exhibited a dramatic flanking line, wall cloud and hailshaft...still visible at 9:20pm! We called an end to the day due to nightfall and headed back to Sioux City, IA to stay at the same motel as we did the night before. The ride back was filled with more Tornado Warnings (primarily Antelope County) and vivid lightning at every level of the storm. Ultimately, the dryline did cause a brief SVR storm in western NE, but we made the correct decision to head north/east and play the warm front which paid off quite well.
 

Explosive Cb (cell A). Very impressive

James videoing cell A during a fuel stop.

Struggling wall cloud from cell A

Eruption to our SE (cell B)

Very crisp towers into cell B

To our north lies cell C

Inflow band to cell C

2.5" hailstone from cell B

Cell C past sunset

~3.00" stone from cell B

Look close...2 flanking lines

Severe hailshaft in cell B after sunset

 

 

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