We have climbed the highest hills, and we ran through the fields, but we still haven't found what we’re looking for. But yes we're still running. While it may have been a day lacking in tornadoes, we still found some good views of some powerful storms.
We began our day in Omaha, Nebraska, where we had driven the night before to put ourselves in a good position for potential storms the next day. When we woke up, we were optimistic about our chances to see some tornado producing storms, especially since the SPC had drawn a 10% hatched risk of tornadoes extending from southeastern Minnesota into northwestern Iowa. Unfortunately, the SPC quickly downgraded the risk to 5% in light of the fact that the moisture necessary for producing the storms was being used up by a mesoscale convective vortex to the south. Nonetheless, we were still hoping to see some action in the region and initially decided to drive to Howard County, IA. While driving in the van, we adjusted our target area to south central MN because we decided it would be a good idea to stay south of the warm front that was going to move through the region.
As we were driving towards our destination, storms were already firing on the warm front, meaning the northward progress of the warm front would be slowed as the storms put down cold air. This made it possible for us to get to the warm front in time before it moved through, which was ideal for chasing. However, we were concerned that a lack of moisture in the air would prevent any impressive storms from forming. Moisture is key in creating instability in the atmosphere so that air rises, and it also is important for tornadogenesis by helping the bases of clouds stay lower to the ground. We continued to assess this parameter but had hopes that if we stayed south of the front, there would be enough pooled moisture.
After a morning full of making forecasts and trying to keep Thomas and his bad jokes in check, we were ready for some lunch! We stopped at a barbeque place called Cornbred, located in Ames, Iowa (Go Cyclones, Beat Army!). The food was fantastic. There was something in everything about it. Fueled up and ready to go, we blasted over to our target area.
As we approached the first two counties in MN near Albert Lea, we got out to look at the cumulus field now growing to our southwest. We noticed a few storms developing and quickly got in the van to go northeast to follow them. The storms were strong enough to form large hail, but they quickly moved into an area of cold air and out of the good environment, so we moved back south to look for more promising storms. At this point, lots of storms were forming, but they were so close that they started interfering with each other instead of forming discrete supercells like we were hoping for. However, they still produced lots of impressive lightning and were incredible to behold.
A little later in the evening, the tail end of the cluster of storms broke off and formed a more promising supercell. We stayed with this storm and got to see some great clouds. At one point we were right under the base of the updraft and had a great view of the clouds rising all around us. There were a couple of moments where we could actually see some of the rotation in the atmosphere through the movement of the clouds! We stayed with the storm until we realized that it was becoming a bow echo and not something with tornado potential. After this we finally called it a day and decided to wrap up the evening with burgers and great custard at Culvers.
No comments:
Post a Comment