5/17-5/19 South Dakota & Minnesota Chase

Nick & I had a great three day chase across the Northern Plains and Upper Midwest over the past weekend. 

We encountered many severe storms and lots of wonderful people along our way! Although we did not make it further south where the more intense action was, and the bigger crowds, 

 But sometimes its just about sticking to a target area and pulling the best from what the skies and surroundings bless you with.

Here is some pictures from the past weekend of our chase.

 Shelf Cloud moving closer to Hughes County northwest of Pierre.

 

 Pancake Stack shelf just west Lake Oahe just as the sun fades into the Dakota skies. We measured and reported a high peak wind gust of 61MPH with the gust front on this storm as it overtook our location.

  

TCU trying to organize and GO! on the South Dakota/Nebraska line near Valentine.

 

 

Storms rapidly getting organized over the open county of Ziebach County South Dakota.

 

Finally one of the cells attempts to do it as it interacts with a occluded frontal boundary draped over Ziebach and Meade counties. This wall cloud had visible rotation for a time shown here near Cherry Creek South Dakota 5/18.

Darkening skies over the Badlands of South Dakota near Wall.

  The Badlands greening up!

Well developed wall cloud along along the Minnesota/Iowa border south of Kiester MN. This wall cloud had fair rotation before the inflow became quickly cut off east of Kiester.

Nice Mammatus clouds greeted us on arrival, just North of Murdo in Jones County South Dakota.

 

Late evening severe warned storm rolling over the endless grasslands of central Stanley County in western South Dakota.

Shelf cloud getting better organized as the storm approaches the Missouri River and Lake Oahe northwest of the city of Pierre in Stanley County.