6/22/2013 - NIU Undular Bore

The lapse below is from the NIU Meteorology Webcam System, which caught a spectacular undular bore followed by a few whelps. The bore and train was caused by a decaying mesoscale convective system (MCS). Note the radar image in the hyperlink is a couple hours before the passage of the bore; the bore and train itself was not associated with precipitation in DeKalb.  MCSs often produce arcus such as shelf and roll clouds, but this was a rather unique arcus type that was well removed from the parent -- dead! -- MCS. The continuation of the gravity wave was likely induced by an earlier training MCS in the region that may have, in concert with diurnal morning cooling, stabilized the boundary layer promoting an energy ducting mechanism.

6/24/2013 - Northern Illinois Derecho

Another summer day in northern Illinois -- another convective system.  In this case, a derecho-producing convective system developed near the Quad Cities and raced eastward at speeds near 60-70 mph, generating a swath of damaging winds 100s of miles long.  I intercepted the storm along I-88, just east of Dixon. I originally stopped in Dixon to await the storm, but became concerned I would not have enough time to get on the oddly configured I-88 entrance ramp in time as the storm approached. Therefore, I made the decision to hop on the toll and find a spot to pull over on the interstate. Luckily, shoulder work was occurring in a few spots. I picked one of those construction sites and watched this beast of a storm approach about as quick as any storm I've ever witnessed (this was likely faster than the 4 August 2008 derecho-producing convective system).  Because of the speed of the storm, it didn't have the typical anvil overspread providing shade. This produced a horrible lighting situation, which had me peering to the southwest looking for a probable tornado-producing mesovortex. Indeed, a tornado to my immediate southwest was confirmed later by the NWS -- I wonder if many of these line mesovortex tornadoes have condensation to the ground? Doubt it.  As soon as I could make out the mesovortex, it was on me. I raced east on I-88, never stopping until I got off the DeKalb exit. Amazingly, the storm was still on me as I exited, permitting only about 30 seconds of pictures before it began to rain. I guesstimate the storm speed along this micro-surge due to the mesovortex was near 75 mph, if not greater. Not the best photography day, but a heck of a storm to experience.

View out the sunroof along I-88 as I tried to stay ahead of the beast.

View of "wall of water" at Huntley Middle School in south DeKalb.

Lapse of wide-angle scenes east of Dixon and south of DeKalb. 

6/21/2013 - White River, SD and Torrington, WY Storms

My last Plains chase of 2013 was another slight risk, upslope play.  Initially, we started the morning in Pierre, SD rushing out of the hotel to intercept an eastward moving, severe MCS heading out of the Badlands.  Just as we left Pierre, we ran into a bit of small hail from developing elevated cells. After we cruised away from that convection, we hurried down to White River, SD where we caught up with the mini-bow echo just west of town.  Unfortunately, stratus ahead of the storm complex prevented any sort of visual of the structure.  We retreated to White River due to wind driven hail concerns and had a wonderful view of the whale's mouth at the Gus Stop II gas station (I find myself here every year!).  After this passed, we continued on towards our target region west of a Chadron to Scotts Bluff line -- we were tied to this western target since we need to be at DIA by 10 am the next morning. We viewed a bit of mammatus north of Mitchell, NE and the intercepted a series of multicells in far eastern Wyoming.  The southern most cell eventually took on a supercellular appearance on radar as we sat directly under the convergence in the updraft region of the storm. This storm was not overly pretty, but did drop baseballs north of Torrington. We ventured north after the core to play with a bit of the hail, which was a very cold experience -- the outflow was extremely chilly with this storm. We watched the sunset and caught some evening lightning south of Torrington as elevated convection continued to develop atop the cold dome. Overall, a nice peaceful close to my 2013 Plains excursions.

Whale's Mouth at White River, SD 

 Mammatus north of Mitchell, NE

Hail stripped trees and covering the ground near Torrington, WY

Eyeballs -- I mean hail -- covering the roadway near Torrington, WY

Sunset south of Torrington, WY

IC lightning south of Torrington, WY

Lapse of scene captures.

6/20/2013 - Linton, ND Supercell

This day featured a fairly easy target, with an instability tongue nosing into a triple point in south-central North Dakota. We spent an hour or so in the Herried, SD park waiting for convection to fire. Luckily, when it did, we only had to drive five minutes north! We watched the incipient tower grow to a nice looking supercell that transitioned into an elongated storm with several circulation centers. Eventually, the storm sent cold outflow south, reducing tornado potential. We followed the storm for hours and ended up with a nice synopsis of how convection struggles to remain organized in an environment with lackluster winds in the low-to-mid levels. If those winds had been just 10 or so knots stronger in that cloud bearing level, I suspect this could have been a heck of a tornado event.

If you have the desire to be swallowed by mosquitoes, this is a great spot.

The only distinct funnel we found this day -- though there were lots and lots of scud bomb nader look-alikes.

A lapse of the many scenes we caught.

6/18/2013 - Gillette, WY Storm

We targeted the northeast Wyoming Plains for this marginal day. Storms went up relatively early off the Big Horns and spread eastward. Though the high-based storms were pretty, they quickly gusted out as they headed into the the poor road network of extreme northeast Wyoming. We called it a day early and headed to Buffalo, WY, where we overnighted.

6/17/2013 - Hay Springs, NE Storms

This slight risk day featured several marginal chase opportunities up and down the High Plains. We decided to hedge north into Nebraska to get away from some of the other chasers (likely focused on the Colorado target) and to visit the very beautiful area of northwest Nebraska. This also put us closer to the plays in the northern High Plains for the next few days. We initially targeted an outflow boundary north of Scottsbluff, NE, but had to stop to get 1) a tire plugged and 2) photograph a beautiful late morning storm north of Oshkosh, NE. We continued on to the target soon thereafter, waiting patiently for convection to form north of Scottsbluff.  I finally pulled the plug on my original target as the convection was pulsing and radar indicated a "meaty" supercell moving off the Black Hills (of course, a supercell did finally form along the boundary; alas, too late for my patience).  As we neared Chadron, NE, this storm was clearly struggling on radar but, nevertheless, put on a nice visual display. Eventually new storms formed to the north and rolled towards our location, producing an amazing sunset that none of us will soon forget. Overnighted at mom and pop motel in Chadron.

Initial late morning storm -- lapse below illustrates just how cool this little gem was.

Unique lifting band creating virga along the anvil of the late morning storm.

Struggling supercell near Hay Springs.

Behind the initial storm near Hay Springs, a line of convection developed and produced a stunning display in the evening light. It was difficult for me -- an amateur photographer -- to capture this scene correctly. I just didn't do the colors justice.

Lapse of scenes captured.

6/16/2013 - Birdwood River, NE Storms

Another large area of marginal severe storm risk for the High Plains had us throwing darts on the road atlas for a target. We (my brother Ken, nephew Jonathan, and I) eventually settled on the area just north of I-80 and east of Lack McConaughy in Nebraska.  Initially, we intercepted a cell moving southeast out of the Sandhills west of Tryon, NE. The storm was elevated, but quite pretty. The storm eventually spit out an amazing roll cloud stretching east-to-west along the horizon.  Thereafter, we trucked it back up the rural road north of Sutherland where we intercepted another elevated storm with a beautiful abandoned farm house as foreground. Another peaceful and beautiful chase day on the High Plains. Overnighted in North Platte.

Hard to believe that some meteorology professors couldn't appreciate such a scene and the amazing learning experience that a day like this provides ... some things are best experienced! But don't you dare tell that to the all-knowing. 

Lapse of scenes.

6/15/2013 - Chyenne, WY to Sterling, CO Supercell

Victor and I met up with my brother and nephew near New Raymer in the Pawnee grasslands of northeast Colorado. We targeted a storm progged in the convective resolving models to roll of the Laramie Range. Like clockwork, a storm formed and rolled off the higher terrain in the mid-to-late afternoon. We intercepted the storm just east of Cheyenne, WY and chased it all the way to Sterling, CO where we finally let it go in the late evening night. The storm looked impressive on radar, but seemed to suffer from pulsing updrafts and an elongated base visually. Nevertheless, it was still another beautiful High Plains storm and another great day of chasing in 2013.

Stitch of several images providing a wide-angle view of the storm.

Timelapse of scenes captured on the chase.

6/14/2013 - Dodge, NE Supercell

Victor and I targeted the area between Norfolk and Columbus, NE on this slight risk day. This region had strong surface convergence, moderate instability, and sufficient shear for supercells. The only concern was the strong capping inversion, which had us waiting in the Humphrey, NE park for a lengthy part of the afternoon. As strato-cu took over, we became increasingly concerned about (the potential lack of) storms firing in our target region. We actually began to bail south toward less organized storms and, not even 10 minutes later, the first radar echo appeared northeast of Humphrey. We returned north and intercepted the slowly maturing storm near sr-91 and sr-15. The storm slowly matured into a majestic stack of plates with lightning spitting out all over. The slow moving storm provided eye candy for a good hour or so, before convection to the south interacted with it, causing it to become increasingly disorganized. We punched west and then southwest toward Grand Island, stopping to take in a bit of lightning after sunset near Central City, NE. Overnighted in Grand Island.

Storm becomes organized and obtains the crashing wave appearance along edge of the base.

I like to call these type of pictures "cooked cow".

Lapse of scenes captured.

6/13/2013 - Woodrow, CO Storms

Victor and I left DeKalb at 5 am with a target of eastern Colorado on what was progged to be a marginal day. Nevertheless, we thought there was enough potential to head west, play the upslope on Thursday and target Nebraska on Friday before I meet my brother in Denver for a week of chasing commencing Saturday.  We made the LONG I-80 ferry, approaching the target region near Brush, CO at about 4:30. Storms had already developed near Denver International Airport and were slowly moving east. We ventured south to just a hair north of Woodrow, CO where we paused on a rural road to take in the nice view west toward the maturing convection.  We sat on this rural road for the better part of an hour, lapsing the amazing mammatus and high based structure to the west. A dead tree along the road provided the perfect foreground. As the storm neared, we slid east ... and then, the dust bombs started. We were engulfed in dust for the next hour, with many intense gustnadoes forming near us. It was a dusty good time! We eventually headed south, east, and then back north, but we could never get ahead of the line again. We overnighted in Ogallala. Overall, it was a worth the long drive ... there is just something about sitting in the High Plains soaking in the atmosphere.

Stitch of several images. 

One of the many intense gustnadoes we tried to play with.  

 Yet another intense gustnado.

Chase ends with a beautiful rainbow at sunset.

6/12/2013 - Mt. Carroll, IL Supercell and Tornado

Wednesday was the first high risk in Illinois in many, many years. That, naturally, had me out the door to view what Mother Nature had in store. A few of us gathered at my house in the early-to-mid afternoon and targeted the area between Freeport and Lanark, IL where the greatest backed winds were progged by the models. As we approached our target region from the southeast, convection began to develop in all quadrants. It was then a matter of choosing which storm to latch onto ... we ended up following an initial storm up to the Rockford area, but it never really got its act together. The best looking storm at this time was along and south of the I-88 corridor, but we let that go since we were well north of the meaty storm and we didn't want to fight the Chicago 'burbs. At this point, we were somewhat disappointed with the way the setup was playing out. Alas, we turned west with an eye on storms approaching from Wisconsin and Iowa. We moseyed west on US-20 to Stockton, where we grabbed a quick bite and wondered whether it was worth sticking around for the storm(s) approaching along the Mississippi River. The area of extreme nw IL is not known for its good chase territory, so we were somewhat reluctant to venture north and west. Also, the storm we were going to intercept didn't look that great on radar. Nevertheless, a tornado warning was reissued, so we gave it a shot. We shot south out of Stockton, hoping to intercept the storm between Stockton and Mt. Carroll. This area is very beautiful country, but you might as well be chasing eastern Kentucky since it is hilly with lots of trees. We eventually took Elizabeth Rd. northwest to get a bit closer to the southeast-moving storm. We made it about 7-10 miles northwest and took in a view we were not expecting -- a fine looking supercell that ...  uhhh ... was producing a tornado! We perched ourselves wherever we could find an open spot in this tough chase terrain. We watched the tornado skip and jump across the landscape. We eventually had to bust southeast on Elizabeth Rd. to stay ahead of the approaching core and tornado. Once we got visual again near Mt. Carroll, the tornado had dissipated. The storm then began to suck on cold air -- likely outflow from the eastern storms. It became elevated and produced one of the more odd features I've ever seen -- a funnel that stretched north over the top of the cold dome. If you look closely in the pic and timelapse below you'll see the funnel. Anyway, below are some pics from Victor and I, as well as a timelapse of the scenes I was able to capture. The post concludes with a video from Matt Piechota of a segment of the EF2 tornado.

Beautiful tornadic supercell in extreme nw IL.

Note the vertical, then horizontal, funnel cloud!

Timelapse of scenes from the evening.

Matt Piechota's video of the tornado.