6/26 Palmer Divide

We began today in Kimball, NE and needed to be in Denver no later than 12:30 PM mountain time.  One of the guests had a family emergency come up, so they needed to leave a day earlier.  After we dropped off the guest, we blasted south toward Colorado Springs, CO, where storms were beginning to go up along the Rockies.  Today's storm prospects looked bleak for producing tornadoes, and one storm looked good for a few scans.  However, like the other storms that went up, it quickly became junky and not photogenic.  Alas, we stopped outside of Colorado City, CO, where we had our rooms for the night.  After hanging out on a dirt road, we decided to call it a day and head to the hotel.  12 of us met for dinner a BBQ joint down the road from the hotel, and the food was pretty good.  We drove 347 miles today.

6/25 Storms near Kimball, NE

We began today in Avoca, IA after yesterday's very long chase day.  Our plan was to blast west towards Sidney, as storms were forecasted to go up in Wyoming and move to the southeast towards us.  We stopped for lunch in Kearney, NE, and we continued our trek westward.  Soon, a storm initiated where the models predicted, and it held together long enough for us to get closer to it.  We jumped off I-80 at Roscoe, NE, and found a nice viewing area to watch the storm get closer.  At this point, it was becoming outflow dominant, which meant tornado chances would be very slim.  Kim booked rooms for us in Kimball, NE, and we followed this storm for a while.

We found what appeared to be a random driveway to stop and view the storm.  A fenced-off area adjacent to it had signs that basically stated deadly force will be used on unauthorized persons.  We did not think much of this, so we continued to watch the skies.  Eventually, a military hummer pulled up, and two uniformed soldiers with automatic rifles approached the group.  One of them asked me what we were doing, and I stated that we are storm chasers watching these storms.  He stated that we need permission to be here and that we need to leave immediately.  Apparently, we were on top of an active missile silo!!  Of course, anyone with common sense knows you do not argue with someone who has a gun, so we left without argument.  We found a spot about a mile down the road to view the storms, and the military soldiers waved and honked at us as we were going about our business.

Anyway, the storms were looking rather uninteresting, so we started heading to Kimball.  Along the way, we stopped along US 30 to take pictures of the variety of colors in the sky.  A storm began going up about 60 miles to the west, so we bolted off after it, only to find that it was quickly dying.  We found a dirt road to stop and watch the storm pass and the sun set.  All in all, today was a pretty good day, and we drove 559 miles.

6/24 Harland, IA Supercell

Storm near Harland, IA

Structure before storms became linear

We began today in Mobridge, SD, and today's target area was in Iowa, where the parameters for supercells and tornadoes were off the charts.  In other words, instability was so high that any storm that could break the atmospheric cap and go up would go tornadic very fast.  However, we were concerned about the convection from this morning, and we were hoping it would not mess with anything needed for storm development in the afternoon.  This meant we had to get up at 7 AM mountain time and drive 7 hours to get in position.  Along the way, we made pit stops and had a very quick lunch stop.  The models were not handling this morning's convection very well, so they were quite stingy with showing storm development.  As the day wore on, we found ourselves heading east on I-80 towards Avoca, IA.  After a pit stop/data analysis, we headed south into the town of Emerson, where we found a gas station to hang out for a while.  Eventually, the atmosphere began to boil, and it looked like the cap would hold just long enough to allow for explosive storm development.  We

More structure

decided to head north out of Emerson and stopped close to Harland, IA, where one storm tower looked like it would be "it."  Sure enough, it quickly had tops of 50,000+ feet.  At this point, we met up with the president of Tempest Tours, Martin Lisius, and his assisstant, Kim George.  Martin confidently stated, "This storm is going to produce a tornado within 30 minutes."  As we continued to follow this monster, it looked like Martin's prediction would be correct.  The storm quickly became rooted in the boundary layer and with all of the parameters lining up, a very rapidly rotating wall cloud appeared.  Unfortunately, it did not give us a tornado due to the cooler/stable air near the surface, but we stayed on this

cell for a while.  One tornado report came out of this storm, but the validity of the report remains in question, especially since hordes of chasers were on this storm and no one else reported a tornado.  As we continued our pursuit of this storm, it went through a bit of an identity crisis, if you will.  Due to the cooler stable air near the surface, tornado production quickly decreased.  Eventually, the storms became more linear, with embedded supercells.  In the end, we were treated to a nice light show before we drove to our hotel in Avoca, IA.  We drove 707 miles today.

6/23 New England, ND

We began today in Lemmon, SD, and we were debating about our chase target for the day.  Our first option was to head west and play the NE Wyoming target, and our other option was to completely blow it off and start heading east towards Iowa for tomorrow's good severe weather chances.  Ultimately, we decided to play the western target and hope for the best.  After we left the hotel, we found an old school building in Haynes, SD.  One of the locals gave us some information about the building.  We stopped in Hettinger, ND for lunch at C & N Cafe.  After lunch, we decided to check out the Enchanted Highway, which has a bunch of gigantic metal sculptures along the route.  Eventually, we saw cloud towers going up, so we started drifting closer to the towers.  By the time we arrived in New England, ND, the storm was looking beefy.  We found a place out of town to watch the storm come to us.  One of the guests bought supplies for s'mores yesterday, so we enjoyed s'mores as we were watching the storm.  There were times the storm looked like it wanted to produce a tornado, but cold air kept undercutting it.  We ended up in Mobridge for the night after driving 309 miles.

6/22 Northern Lights

*Times mentioned in this entry are all in Mountain Daylight Time (MDT)*  Today's severe weather threat was all the way in WI/MN, and we avoided chasing there for 2 reasons.  First, the terrain is very poor for chasing with the hills and trees.  Second, we would have been well out of position for the next day.  That being said, one of the guests suggested we stay in northern SD so we would have a good view of the Northern Lights tonight.  Bill reserved rooms in Lemmon, SD, just 96 miles west of where we stayed last night.  We arrived at our hotel around 2 PM, and we all met for our celebratory steak dinner at 6:30 PM.  As a side note, it is tradition in the storm chaser community to enjoy a steak dinner after having a successful tornado intercept.  Pretty neat, huh?  Anyway, we met in the lobby at 10:45 PM to view the Northern Lights.  We drove 6 miles east out of Lemmon and watched the spectacular show.  For about 5-10 minutes, there was a burst that lit up the sky.  It was phenomenal!!  One of the guests, Alex, has given me permission to use his photos.

Tornado Fest Near Lodgepole, SD

Hanging out near Bowman, ND

Tornado #1

What a phenomenal chase day!!  The things we saw today are what all chasers dream of, multiple tornadoes dropping from the same long-lived supercell.  We began the day in Chadron, NE and left earlier than normal (9 AM mountain time), because we had a 6 hour drive ahead of us.  Our target was near Bowman, ND, as models were persistent in hinting at storms that would move through there.  If a storm could develop near Baker, MT and move into air with more moisture and instability, we knew it would lead to very high chances of seeing a tornado or two.  After we stopped for lunch in Sturgis, SD, storms were beginning to form in Montana, so we continued north towards Bowman.  We took a pit stop and hung around town for a while so we could figure out what our next move would be.  One of the storms moving towards us was looking very good, but we did not want to get suckered, in the event storms would develop closer.  Eventually, Bill decided to have us head west, as this storm was showing signs of strengthening and possibly becoming tornadic.  As we headed west towards Baker, there was a suspicious lowering coming from the base.  After a while, the storm looked like it was sputtering, but the day was still young, and it was not in the "good" air yet.  We turned around followed this storm east through Bowman and pulled off outside of Bowman to observe its behavior.  There was a very tight wall cloud at one point, and we started to get very excited.  As we continued east, it started to look very promising!  Near Hettinger, ND, the storm began to tighten up and give us a wall cloud that was rotating like a top.  We took a south option out of Hettinger and the storm gave us our first tornado of the day near Lodgepole, SD!!!  It did not last very long, but we saw it touch the ground and rope out.  Shortly after that one dissipated, another one formed within a few minutes.  This one was a beautiful rope tornado, and there was a very clear RFD cut behind it.  Mark tornado 2 off the list!!  After watching this one for a while and nearly getting hit by large hail, we continued to head south, as the storm was getting ready to produce another one.  Directly above us was a very tight circulation, and we wanted to get more distance between us and the storm so we would be able to see better.  We found another east option and drove through the town of Bison, SD.  At this point, there was another very suspicious lowering, so we stopped outside of Bison to watch.  We could not stay long, as we suddenly got blasted by very strong RFD winds, which meant tornado development was imminent, directly on top of us!!!  We had to turn the vans around and head back west to get out of the danger zone, and when we stopped, the storm's base had a "pregnant belly" look.  Bill stated this usually precedes the development of large tornadoes, but we eventually got caught in the torrential rain and hail.  We later found out that a large tornado indeed DID form out of this.  At this point, we did not have any good south options for a while, so we continued to blast east and get hammered by the core precipitation.  As the core finally passed, we pulled over and watched the light show.  Another funnel appeared and briefly touched down, which marked our 3rd tornado of the day!!  Overall, we had a career day, by most chaser's standards.  I did not get the exact miles, but I'm pretty sure we drove close to 580 miles today.  We stayed overnight in Mobridge, SD.

Tornado #2

Tornado #3

Edgemont, SD Supercell

We left Denver yesterday much later than anticipated due to unforeseen circumstances.  Our fearless leader for this trip is Bill Reid, and Rob Petit is the other driver  After the group orientation, we listened to the weather briefing.  Due to a big ridge taking shape in the southwest, we knew our best chances for storm development would be in WY and SD.  Our target for the day was Lusk, WY   Once we hit the road, we took I-25 north to Cheyenne, WY, where we made a fast food lunch stop.  While we were driving to Cheyenne, Bill called ahead to reserve rooms in Chadron, NE.  After our lunch break, we continued north towards Torrington, WY and Lusk via US 85.  About 20 miles north of Lusk, we were finally able to see the base of a storm we were tracking.  At this point, it was moving around 30 mph in an ESE direction.  This would prove to be beneficial at first, as we had some good east options.  Eventually, the storm picked up speed due to the lack of surface winds to counteract it.  This caused problems, because we were forced to drive on dirt/gravel roads.  As we approached Edgemont, SD, the storm started looking good.  A very suspicious lowering appeared, and the storm was rotating.  Unfortunately, low level clouds interfered and obscured our view of the storm.  Nothing ever materialized, so we continued to follow it the best we could.  As we got closer to Chadron, the storm started to get more organized.  We drove about 20 miles east out of Chadron and enjoyed the light show.  At one point, there was a very interesting feature underneath the storm where a wall cloud and tornado would form.  Was it a tornado?  Radar showed very strong evidence of a tornado, but due to the lack of light, we could not confirm it.  Overall, it was a good start to this tour.  We ended the night in Chadron, NE after we drove about 440 miles.

Tempest Tours 2015

Good morning, everyone!!  Today begins my storm chasing vacation for 2015, and I will be flying from Chicago to Denver.  The fun part begins tomorrow when we leave Denver and start hunting storms.  Hopefully, the pattern will remain active.  Stay tuned for future updates!!  I found this image online, so I cannot take credit for it.