Chasing Storms Once Again

It's been awhile since I've had a chance to chase storms of any consequence. I had a couple of days off, and summertime thunderstorms were expected to fire today across the Dakotas, then slipping south into Nebraska tomorrow.

After getting off a midnight shift this morning, my original plan called for getting some sleep until about 1 pm or so, then I'd head north toward Sioux Falls (about a 3 hour drive) to see what I could see. Well, the storms were already firing by 9 am. That's a typical time that storms decrease in intensity, but not today. They continued to strengthen, and soon, a convective discussion was in effect for southeast South Dakota. So, I headed north at 10 am with no sleep.

By 1 pm, I caught up with the line of storms. I drove around a few back roads southwest of Sioux Falls, but the storms were all garbage. Some heavy rain, penny sized hail, and gusty winds. I decided to let the storms go and stopped for lunch. After lunch, I decided to head west to catch some of the storms that would develop across the Black Hills. I did stop at a rest area to get some sleep, but only slept for about 1/2 hour. It was enough to keep me going.

By late afternoon, storms were firing in both northwest and southwest South Dakota. There were still another 3 hours away, and I really didn't want to drive that far. At the same time, storms started to fire in north central Nebraska. These storms were about 80 miles to my south, a much more appealing target.

So, I drove south on 183, watching the storms continue to grow. They were quickly strong enough to produce severe weather, and eventually a tornado warning was issued. (Picture below is the storm about 20 minutes after the warning was issued, about 50 miles away.



I finally caught up with the storm around 8 pm. I had lost my cell phone connection, thus I didn't have radar data, so was chasing blind, but using NOAA Weather Radio for positioning. I core punched the storm and ended up about 3 miles southeast of the mesocylone. It was a good ride. I never did see a tornado, but did see a funnel cloud (image below). This was just a couple of miles to my west.


Unfortunately, the road I was on dead-ended (turned into a cattle path), and I had to turn around a backtrack through country dirt roads that had already received a lot of rain. That wasn't very fun, but I eventually made it back to Oneill, Nebraska where I'm staying tonight.

All in all, I've been awake for almost 24 hours, with only 30 mintues of sleep, and almost 600 miles later. Wow, adrenaline can do weird things!