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Today turned out to be the biggest day of the chase. We saw the DOW3, the TIV, got filmed to possibly be on a show on the discovery channel, core punched a squall line, and probably the most important thing, we saw a tornado!! We were on the road for almost 20 hours and logged 670 miles. We started in North Platte, NE and ended on Columbus, NE... but we hit South Dakota in there, too. We were up by 6am CDT, had our forecast discussion, and by 8:30am CDT we were heading for Valentine, NE. We had the distinct pleasure (read: that was sarcasm) of driving through Cherry county and the Sand Hills of Nebraska, about which Zach penned a wonderful song in the van. For those of you that have never heard of the Sand Hills, you're probably lucky. Cherry county is bigger than Connecticut, and this is all you see for almost 3 hours. Around 11:00am CDT we arrived in Valentine, NE. As a side note, the night before we had planned on trying to get to Valentine, but there were no hotels available. Turns out there was some hardcore chaser convergence, and we were pleasantly surprised by what we saw when we stopped there. We were just relaxing at a gas station, assessing some data and getting snacks when we saw a Doppler On Wheels (DOW) pull into the parking lot. We all went over to see the equipment and talk to Herb Stein the DOW driver. Turns out, he had been staying at the motel next door with quite an armada of chase vehicles. I believe it was either Heather or Vanessa that first noticed the Tornado Intercept Vehicle parked in the motel parking lot. It was like a meteorological dream-come-true to see that thing just chilling there! We had the opportunity to talk with some people on the chase team. They had a crew from the discovery channel with them filming for a new show that will likely be out in November, and we might be in it!! Here are some pictures... The TIV. 8 tons of awesomeness From the front with the hood off Other chase vehicles in the motel parking lot The inside of the TIV And a couple group shots... The most badass thing I've ever been a part of...  And with the DOW3... for you weather buffs out there, that's Joshua Wurman on the far right!!!  For a video of the TIV starting up, click here. Ahhh the sweet sound of science!! After all that, we decided to head north towards Murdo, South Dakota where we ran into the same chase team from Valentine around 2pm CDT. In order to have some peace and avoid the circus, we kept going and wound up in 1880 Town, a tourist trap north of Murdo. At about 2:30 MDT we went into chase mode when some cumulus to our north showed some explosive vertical development. We were on the storm when the NWS put out a tornado warning on it. Not too long afterwards we got a visual on a funnnel that kept coming down and going back up. And then it happened... We came up on a ridge in the hills, and it was on the ground!!! The ultimate prize for a chaser Another shot of the tornado And another One more After soaking in the fact that we actually caught a tornado, it was back in the vans to try to get closer. As we headed towards the storm, the tornado dissipated, but there was still a sexy wall cloud hanging down, so we kept on it. We turned down a dirt road to get closer and wound up getting a little more than we bargained for. Once we were on the road, we had no choice but to take it and ended up driving right under the rotating wall cloud. At some points, it looked like it was starting to descend again. It was the angriest looking sky I've ever seen. That was the only time during the whole trip that we were freaked out because we had no way out if something started to come down. Nothing wound up happening, so we had a good laugh about it afterwards while Griff and Dan kept an eye on things out the back doors. We stopped in Winner, SD for gas and a break after all the excitement, and more storms started to pop all around us. One Two Three Soon, we were off again, and the storms began to organize into a squall line instead of discrete supercells. Mother Nature still had a lot in store for us, though. The storms were going up so fast you could actually see them blowing up. It looked like the clouds were boiling! Part of the line The anvil was HUGE MAMMATUS!! (this was the first time I had ever seen them) More mammatus Mammatus as the sun was setting The sky looked like something right out of a textbook. For four years as a student I had seen pictures of things like this and seen them on TV my whole life. I never expected to see this stuff in person. It was absolutely incredible. As night fell we decided to punch a weaker part of the squall line and got quite an impressive lightning show as we headed for a hotel. When all was said and done, it was one hell of a day. We arrived in Columbus, NE around 1am CDT. Here is the SPC plot of storm reports for the day:  For a much closer view of the tornado from other chasers, click here! |
