Here is our blog entry from the last few days for the Emmons County North Dakota storm to the violent bow echo that raced across South Dakota through to Minnesota on Friday.
June 19th, 2013 late evening
We got on a cell that was entering into Big Stone County, MN about midnight to take some lightning video and pictures. The storm was producing warnings in SD, but was dying as it reached MN. The winds were gusting to 40 by the time it reached us.
Here is a picture of one of the lightning shots we got that night.
June 20, 2013
North Dakota
We targeted a spot in western ND. We first stopped in the town of Jamestown, ND to visit the BIG Friendly Buffalo that was greeting our arrival into town.
From Jamestown, ND we headed a little more west and further south to near Linton, SD. Here we watched a supercell rotate and produce wall cloud.
It had great inflow into the storm.
During parts of the storm it would go from producing a wall cloud to start to get linear and produce a shelf cloud. In this picture above and below it shows the storm going outflow - but showing the nice shelf cloud on the leading edge of the storm.
Here the storm is trying to do it again big time! The wall cloud really begin to rotate once again with wild upward rising motion. We are sitting east of Linton, ND.
Picture of the car, with radar screen shot and looking directly west to the storm - looking right into the beast. We were East of Linton, ND.
We then headed south to South Dakota after this storm to set up for the next day's chase.
June 21, 2013
South Dakota
A storm was already firing off and over the Rapid City area early in the morning (around 9am) and lo and behold that became the main player for the day.
We started out near Chamberlain, SD and initially got on the storm and quickly raced east to get out in front of the storm. The storm was producing massive hail and intense winds.
This is a shot of the shelf cloud that was racing east. We just got on the storm here just Northeast of Chamberlain, SD.
Here is a shot of inside the car looking west at the shelf cloud. You could see how dark it was.
The World's Greatest Natural Sandblaster!
This picture (above) was taken 4 miles northeast of woonsocket, SD in Sanborn County. The shot was taken just 3 miles east of the actual leading edge of the storm. As you can see, the shelf cloud is just making its way into the right side of the picture. We measure a 65 MPH wind gust just before this photo was taken.We slowed down several times as we tracked east and got just ahead of the storm to let it briefly overtake up so we could sample the wind gusts as it tracked along. We encountered many instanced with zero visibility with the extreme blowing dirt and sand from the surprisingly dry topsoil conditions; and seen dozens of well organized gustnadoes that we spinning up on the initial cutting edge of the wind shift line.
It took us a whole bag of quarters at a self serve car wash to get all the dirt and sand from every nook and cranny on the car!
Here the storm is turning into a violent HABOOB with over 70 MPH winds, and blowing dust was being pushed out 6 miles out ahead of the storm. This was taken just east of Woonsocket, SD.
Below are a few more pictures of the storm structure as it kept moving east.
Here the storm is now approaching our position east of Madison, South Dakota. We encountered 1 inch hail in diameter shortly after this picture.
Unfortunately this storm raced all the way to the East to the Twin Cities metro area where 80 MPH winds were recorded. Numerous trees fell and toppled onto power lines causing a massive power outage for a widespread of the Twin Cities area.
June 22, 2013
South Dakota / Iowa / Nebraska
We started out in Sioux Falls, SD. We headed to the southern tip of SD to await the storms. We crossed into Iowa and Nebraska to re-center ourselves for development of storms.
Nothing fired until late that night (around 9pm).
We busted weather wise - but totally didn't bust as we got to see one of our favorite birds! The Eastern Meadowlark greeted us as we entered the southern part of the state.
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