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4-6-10
Today was interesting...for about an hour. After busting MISERABLY the day before in NW Missouri, our ambition was sort of in the dumps today. Morning model runs weren't too favorable and we actually mentioned just shooting straight home. As the day went on, however, parameters looked better and better. Our target was just east of the triple point around the Des Moines area.
We sat and waited on a little side road in Bondurant, waiting for things to happen. The cu field started to build slowly but surely until finally one gained enough motivation. Unfortunately it crossed over into the cold air shortly after going up. Once that happens, bye bye tornado chances. It actually looked VERY nice on radar eventually, gaining that flying eagle appearance, but being so elevated with 43 degree dewpoints, it didn't stand a chance.
Here is a short timelapse of the first storm firing and immediately crossing over into the cold air. The 2nd part shows the stratus field forming, growing, and twising as the warm air collides with the cold air. We eventually picked up and moved north closer to the boundary hoping storms would initiate along the warm front. No such luck. Finally after hours of waiting, we noticed the first storm go up to our south. So we hook south and wait some more. Like a switch, storms started going crazy along the cu field in line with our position. Skipping ahead, we decide to bust south to the storm south of Grinnell, Iowa. We go from blue sky to TOO many storms in a matter of an hour. Crazy how it can happen on a day like today. Just south of Grinnell, we notice a small lowering out ahead of the RFD, but wasn't too discernable yet.
In hindsight, we should have kept booking west on this road in the picture. That would have put us in perfect position and could have put to rest our suspicions following the damage survey. Instead, we push a little further south.
A few more miles to our south, we notice this. Just before this shot, that funnel was much more defined. The wall cloud was rotating pretty rapidly and new funnels would keep appearing. We thought it was game on.
This is just outside of a town called Lynneville. No offense if anyone is reading this from there, but you really did a number on us this time! As I mentioned in the last entry, every time a storm decides it's going to go crazy/tornadic, we get screwed by a new town. This was no exception. We shoot west into town and try in vain to find a north option. NOPE. There was nothing. So here comes the hail. The RFD pounded us as we tried to punch out of the south side. We finally busted through and hoped we could bust back north to catch back up to the storm. With 60 mph storm speeds, we had a snowballs chance in hell. Heading back north through Grinnell, we noticed the power was out. A little further into town we see why. There was sheet metal wrapped around telephone poles, trees down, tiles missing off of roofs...we thought for sure that it had dropped a small tornado after what we saw. Apparently it was wind damage. This is from NWS: http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=dmx&storyid=50660&source=0 95-105 mph wind gusts just north of Grinnell. A small part of me still believes it was a tornado, but we'll never know. It's hard to believe that it didn't tornado after the motions and persistant funnels we saw until the rain curtains blocked our view.
Also, check out Joel Wright's account here: http://qcweather.net/4-6-2010.php