Well, the long advertised chase day was here, and I was ready to chase...so I chased. That was possibly the lamest entry line of any of my accounts on here. Anyway, I needed a way to start this and that is the best I could do. I knew days out that by the morning of, I'd still be clueless on playing the north or south game. I get up and sure enough, still clueless on which I wanted to go to....Oklahoma or South Dakota. The amount of clouds/junk over the central and southern plains put a big ol flag up for me. It wasn't just those, but that cirrus feed from NM that didn't look like it wanted to stop. Cirrus and a low November sun angle are not a chaser's friend, especially when they are palin around together(election slogans are still stuck in my head apparently). The storm prediction center wasn't making it easy to blow off the southern play, with their 10% hatched tornado probs down there, and only 2% unhatched in SD. Then they made it even more "tricky" with an upgrade to moderate risk and 15% hatched tornado probs in se KS and ne OK. I'm glad I've gotten past just zooming off to that location when that happens. It's only taken what, 10 years now? Anyway, it's still hard to ignore. The whole time I was never that set on one target or the other, and completely open to both. I've just chased days with lots of clouds that were supposed to leave and wouldn't. I even remember a chase last fall with this pesky persistent band of cirrus coming off the mountains, killing any good heating. Well, that band coming out of NM this day gave me a bad feeling. So I opted north and out the door I went, sometime around 9. Before I left, it looked like ne NE and se SD would be the most in the clear. 1 hour into my drive I load things up and see it has all filled in with low clouds. It felt like a for sure bust as I pumped gas in Sioux City, in those thick low clouds....and it pretty much was, lol. And to top it off, that band of cirrus coming out of NM had finally let go of the continued formation of them and was screaming northeast. That was about the same time as the upgrade to moderate risk happened. I felt like the fool/tool again in my decision making. Too late now, so on I went to Yankton, then north to nw of Sioux Falls around Howard SD I think it was. There was just never enough clearing/heating and like was expected it never was a cold core setup. Mid-levels just weren't going to be cool enough to help with the cooler surface air. Late afternoon storms tried to go east of the sfc low, but they never had much of a chance. So I began the drive back home. I kept looking at what was happening in Oklahoma and southern Kansas, and was soon glad that I was at least not starting the drive back from Oklahoma right now...since it didn't appear I was missing much. Nothing interesting happened until I entered Sioux Falls right in time for the 5pm rush hour(not that it's an issue on the interstate there). I noticed something anvil to my southeast, but figured it was one of the crapper storms in nw IA I could see on radar. Problem was it looked like it was taking off pretty good right then. Shortly after, boom, two brand new storms on radar just se of Sioux Falls. They went from no returns to red in one scan.   So I'm driving south, thinking, cool maybe some night time lightning at least. Then I noticed the look to the towers. The sun wasn't below the horizon quite yet. For whatever reason, those towers on the left side of the above image had a look to them like they were glowing from within. I've seen storms at sunset and all other times about a billion times now. I can say that I've never seen them ever look quite like these were at this time. I've seen them glow a bit, but never like this. It doesn't show too well on the still, but you can kind of see it. The top parts in the shade looked like they had massive lights in them. You know, now I get it. The sun was not far above the horizon, but it was almost completely clear everywhere to the west. Sunlight is obviously hitting the bottoms. Something is obviously blocking the tops, except the one in the middle which is anviling up higher. They looked like they were glowing at their tops(shaded parts of those on the left) because sun light from below was filtering up giving that effect to the much shaded top. At the time I'm driving 65mph south on the interstate in Sioux Falls thinking, that is freaking amazing looking! When sunset or sunrise things like that happen, you just don't have any time at all to get to a better spot. It's take the picture now no matter what, because it's not going to stay like that for long at all. And it didn't. Adding to the scene was that half moon shining on the far right of the above picture. One other thing I know contributed to the strange look had to be the November sun angle. Winter sunsets and rises are often the best thanks to the low sun angle...at least they seem so....given the right clouds and clearing. Well, I know it's not terribly often you get updrafts like that this far north, this late in the year. I'm just assuming that added to the strange look these towers had at this point. It's one of those things you wished others could have been there to see. Much like a great movie and you insist others just have to see it. I wish I could really make that show in the couple pictures I have during it, but I can't. They just had a way of not looking real at the time.

It was still doing it a bit over there. I was going nuts wishing I was not in a damn city right now. Hell the one anviling was cool on its own, up there in direct/less filtered sunlight still.

I exit on the south side of the city and go west and pull over. Check out that one cloud hitch hiking(left of center). He was reaching up there looking for a ride in the mid-level jet by the looks of it.

Now this is something I've done essentially zero of, yet have really wanted to....telephoto shots of convection. Such a simple task, but it requires you to be on the "wrong side of the storms"(west/behind basically). If the storms are pretty crappy like these really were from the other side, well go west my friend(crap another election phrase...my friend...my friend....my friend.....aaarrrggghhh).

I did not shoot this scene long enough...sigh. At least I got what I did though. I'm in my driver's seat, on a crappy shoulder, still in parts of the city. There were combines and semis all over the place here, and lots of cars on this highway. I wondered if I was being really stupid by relying on the image stabilization on the 100-400L and not just using a tripod. Glad some came out ok.

The lower areas of convection were very intense looking.

Boom!

That is what one calls rock hard convection. You could sit there and watch it expanding rapidly outward.

I flew east for two reasons, I thought the southern of the two cells on radar could possibly get more organized, and I really wanted to put the moon right next to the southern updraft. As I went east, thick clouds moved over blocking the cool updrafts. That happens so often it is not funny, and is highly annoying. At least this one went flying west and left a view. But by then the updrafts were dying. The one above here is to the northeast. You can see a long inflow cloud still attached as the base apparently craps out westward..or more likely the updraft shears off to the northeast leaving it there. The pink coloring was really cool, just too bad such a crappy storm for it now.

The southern of the two is behind those low clouds. It actually looked like it was getting a small appendage on radar just before this. I kept scooting east trying to get a spot to shoot the updraft with the moon. I then thought, yeah it needs to produce a tornado under there so I can get that too. Its main tower was likely on the far left side here, with the flanking line/line towers center and right. Anyway, more low clouds detached west from the storm, again blocking the updrafts. By the time they cleared enough, the updrafts were rather dead.