We did manage to drive through two hail storms... one was south of
Vona, CO where hail covered the road and the temperature on the car
thermometer dipped down to 39 degrees! The ambient temperature was
already in the upper 40s near Vona where that tornado-warned storm was
earlier this afternoon along I-70 area. Didn't see much with that,
but it had a nice base for the longest time with continued
back-building. After that, we bailed east as the far most western
storm became severely outflow dominant with a cold air push. We then
headed east on I-70 and drove through the Burlington Supercell as it
crossed I-70. We stopped briefly along the interstate to photograph
the structure from near the Colorado border. It did have a wall
cloud/lowering, but nothing much more. We are now driving east toward
Colby and then likely northeast from there to intercept cells forming
along the dryline in northern Gove County... if they hold together.
It was an extremely frustrating chase day in southern South Dakota. I
picked the wrong target... it was a 50/50 coin flip Lusk/Harrison or
Dupree/Phillip. Well as it turned out, there were severe storms in
both areas.... however, in the Phillip, SD area, the tornadic
supercell formed way too late, after sunset, and was shrouded in
stratus clouds. I tried to pursue that storm, but came upon stratus
at Kadoka and decided to turn back to Murdo and call it a day. I
guess you could call this a storm chasing slump. Haven't even gotten
camera out of the bag to shoot storm images since the beginning of my
vacation on May 3rd. Quite sad. Some decent mid/upper level flow
will overspread the dryline in KS tomorrow, and there is some hope for
some storms along the dryline as some of this leading wind energy
ahead of the next shortwave trough may help enhance convergence and
lead to storm initiation. NAM model this evening shows storms
developing along the dryline northeast of Salina. That's 8 to 9
driving hours or so from Murdo, so I will be getting up early tomorrow
morning and heading south. -Mike U
At 2:30pm, am sitting in Murdo waiting things out. An outflow
boundary from overnight convection farther north had pushed south into
south central south dakota. This is enhancing convergence along an
east-northeast to west-southwest orientation very near my location.
The plan is to hang out here until hard towers start forming near or
west of this location. It is 73 degrees in Murdo with temperatures in
the 80s just to the southeast of here.
