6/10/2008 - Dakota Bust

We targeted the area near Rapid City, SD on Tuesday; unfortunately, the atmosphere did not provide us with any favors. On our way up to Rapid City, we traversed the Badlands of SD where we able to snap a few pics of the beautiful landscape.

Badlands of SD.

We then migrated to Rapid City in anticipation of storms firing off the Black Hills later that afternoon. After sitting ... and sitting ... and sitting ... I thought we needed to cut our losses by ~6 pm and head toward eastern SD in anticipation of the next day's events. Sure enough, as soon as we got about 1.5 hours east of Rapid City, storms fired back to our west. We then backtracked to Rapid City. Unfortunately, the severe storm (a "hailer") just north of Rapid City was shrouded in low-level stratus, making it very difficult to see any features. After taking in this rather weak atmospheric spectacle we drove toward the Missouri River on I-90 where we overnighted.

The storm near Ellsworth AFB (just east of Rapid City), shrouded in stratus ... ugh!