Saturday May 19, 2007


Met up with Randy Baker in St. Louis then picked up Kirk Swain, Mark Rader and Dave Inmon near Kansas City. Since there was not much happening this day we decide to travel 595 miles to O'Neill, Nebraska to get into position for tomorrow's chase.  Since Matt Ziebell could not join us this year he lent us his WxWorx to use during the chase.

Sunday May 20, 2007


We head out of O'Neill Nebraska and take 83 north into South Dakota...then take 90 west towards Rapid City.  A nice supercell develops to the east of Rapid City as we approach the city. However the outflow from the storm pushes out ahead of the storm cutting off its updraft so we head further northwest into Alzada, Montana where the better shear and lower LFC heights were.  Some storms develop across the southern end of the Big Horn Mountain range in Wyoming so we head southwest to Gillette.  On the way to Gillette we stop at Devil's Tower to get some pics of this amazing structure. In Gillette we notice one storm in particular is becoming rather strong so we take Highway 50 southwest of Gillette as a Tornado Warning is issued for this cell. We intercept the storm 13 miles southwest of Gillette around 725 pm MDT where we experienced hail up to dime size...but did not see any signs of a tornado.  The storm produced frequent lightning so we wisely stayed in our vehicle as it overtook us.  After the storm passed we viewed a rainbow with very photogenic mammatus clouds and crepuscular rays as the sun set behind the storm. We then spend the night in Rapid City after driving 723 miles. Several pics of our adventure this day are posted below.

  
The new and improved roof top cam ZOROCAM II
  
A picture of Devil's Tower
  
A picture of the storm to the east of Rapid City
  
The base of the storm as we approach Rapid City
  
The storm just after it passed
  
The rainbow with a faint second rainbow to the right
  
The sun illuminating the underside of the mammatus
  
Mammatus in the other direction
  
Mammatus clouds directly overhead
  
The same view as before but later

YouTube video of the chase

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