|
This day looked good until the moisture issues became a reality. Model forecasts were 15 degrees to high in some areas with what they thought would be there for dew points. This ain't good when capping is an issue to begin with. Shear looked pretty sweet though, with this amazingly strong system, for anytime of year, let alone by June standards. At one point the RUC model was dropping the sfc pressure to 969mb in western SD by midnight. This is getting into rare territory for winter systems on the plains, let alone a JUNE system. With this kind of low you can guess some of the winds would be high. It was a dusty trip out to the target, that is for sure. I was a bit late to the triple point(partly because of lovely construction all along 275...on and on), which is where the only tornado producer formed(a high based small tornado producer in far sw SD). I was in Valentine NE as it got going and I just about flew north for it. My concern was the convection already right behind it, ending its tornadic fun....which it did fairly quickly. Had I left I would have gotten on the storm after it was crap. The only choice left was to stay ahead of the outflow boundary/cold front surging east, to the south of those storms. One could clearly see this boundary on a radar loop. There was another boundary pushing back to the west-northwest. This may have been the dryline retreating a bit, with some better dewpoints coming with. One thing was clear, they were going to collide soon. Would this collision be enough to break through the strong cap/warm mid-levels? It would. I was just ahead of the outflow boundary as it came into Ainsworth. As soon as that other boundary to the se slammed into it, these updrafts started to form. When they first started I thought they looked very odd. They almost appeared like convective orphan anvils lol. Whatever they looked like, it was nice to see some sort of convection in this strongly sheared environment...even if dews were in the low 60s. A tornado watch either was just issued or had been out for a bit. It may have even been a PDS tornado watch(particularly dangerous situation). You don't see those all that often and I'm sure the news never states when a watch is indeed a PDS watch.
|
|
My location was east of Ainsworth somewhere, and this area was at the northern end of this newly formed line of convection. It sucked so many fired at once, but it's not that big of a surprise with those boundaries slamming into one another like that.
|
|
The updraft wanted to at least be round at this end. Once you see the big massive line of storms you can usually kiss your tornado chances good bye. I've certainly never seen a tornado from anything close to a line. It's just too much competition, with updrafts seeding one another with their precip. It was sad these storms couldn't even do much in the way of severe wind. I tried to make the most out of the situation, but one can only do so much with not so great storms.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I am not sure where I am now, somewhere west of O'Neill. It was now pretty dark, darker than this image looks. One thing you could see on this line was an occasional protrusion on the radar reflectivity. Those are sort of like small, brief hooks. They surge out and fill in with everything else. This was during one. You could see the wall cloud form as the small rfd notch cut in. It cut in further until it relaxed and the wall cloud became detached scud.
|
|
I'm starting to really hate this year, much like 2006! It is making me try to remember what it was like to just enjoy ugly skies/storms and not need all the fancy structure that comes with good supercells, which seem so rare these last few years(post 2004). In the end, I'm just not out there for these linear pieces of garbage, that all look the same! Sorry. But here it is anyway. I don't need supercells and I don't need tornadoes(though they both help a lot), I will settle for a GOOD ugly linear severe storm. It seems those are just as rare as the fancy structured supercells and tornadoes! Well, beings I'm 3 chase accounts(days with somewhat ok storms to post) behind(now 2) I'd better be off to work on the other two I've already had after this one, neither any more exciting than this.........sigh. |
