Day 6: The Call of the North

Frigid wastes.  Danger around every corner.  40+ knot wind speeds at the surface.  The call of the north offers different things to many different people, but one constant remains: once beckoned, it cannot be ignored.  That call came to USNA Swift- softly at first, but with time it grew into a cacophony: THERE IS A LOT OF CAPE!  DECENT BULK SHEAR!  BE THE FIRST SWIFT GROUP TO GO TO NORTH DAKOTA!!  These cries could not be left unanswered.  We packed up from Omaha early this morning and headed straight up the plains to meet our... no, destiny's moderate risk of severe thunderstorms.  We passed through Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota on our journey, saw green hills and crop fields, and... uh... cows, I guess (but not a ton else so don't ask me to list much more).  But just about eight hours up the road we started to see some of the fabled storms we were promised, and so the chase began before we had even crossed the state border.

North Dakota proved to be good chasing ground.  There were plains offering miles and miles of visibility and the roads were easy to follow for the most part.  We even ran into a few other chasing groups while we were up there- clearly after some of the SWIFT clout, no doubt.  Nevertheless, while some impressive storms did pop up with rather nice storm signatures, environmental conditions caused them to fizzle out- the North Dakota dream died as soon as it began.  But we here at SWIFT dared to dream- and in shooting for North Dakota tornadoes, at least ended up amongst the stars, and by stars I do mean Aberdeen, South Dakota.  Tomorrow we will return South from whence we came, ready to position ourselves for the predicted onslaught of severe weather on Friday.  Until then, I have been your forward engaged and ready tour guide.  Stay tuned for more!