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9-30-07
Total Chase Mileage: 565 miles
The decison was really a simple one to chase today. This was more than likely the last chase of the year unless we get really lucky and nab something in October, which is pretty unlikely. Wind shear was beyond excellent today but the limiting factor was moisture. Dewpoints were only in the low 50's in the early morning which caused some concern, but by the afternoon any worries disappeared as they were already reaching the 60's in SW Iowa. The low pressure system was hovering over eastern Nebraska moving east. We hit the road around 10 a.m. with intentions of stopping just east of Des Moines to gather data, which we ended up doing. Later we stopped again in Ankeny and noticed a nice clearing slot taking place in western Iowa, which is good. From there we decided on trucking west to intercept some cells that were yet to fire before they went linear. As it turned out, that never happened.
Outlook:
Tornado probability:
Skipping ahead as I always do, we are now just north of Ogden at some park. For the life of me I can't remember the name of it now, but it was pretty nice. It had a nice wraparound lake. We sat here for a while waiting for something, anything. As we were "tailgaiting" in the back of the truck, I noticed one quick lightning bolt but that was it. We noticed a few halfass anvils but they were quickly knocked down to size. Hope was kind of running out in a hurry. There was a clearing for a little while, but midlevel clouds quickly filled in again. Things just weren't looking good at all. Another issue was when (IF) something fired, what time it would be and how much daylight would be left to chase. Here's a quick shot of the clearing.
By this time there had already been a tornado watch issued until 8 p.m.
Continuing to head west after sitting at the park for about an hour, thinks still looked bleak. To our east was pretty much raked so our only hope was for something discrete to fire up, but I think we both thought the day was already shaping up to be yet another bust. Jumping ahead again, we stopped in Gowrie to gather more data. The town was very small which was kind of a letdown, but at the last minute before punching out of the west side, I decided to pull in front of some very small maintenance garage. Surprisingly we quickly connected and it was a good one. Thanks Gowrie! We noticed the low pressure system was spnning off some storms NNE more to the west of us. If we weren't able to connect in Gowrie, who knows what we would have decided on. So, the plan was to shoot out further west and wait for an isolated cell from the spinoff of the low pressure system now making it's way into western Iowa. Again we were in great viewing position for something to happen. We could see the cu arc swinging its way up as we waited. At this point there were some pretty strong backing winds coming from the southeast. Our hopes rose just a little bit at this point.
Shear was clearly visible in this line. This was the extreme northern edge of that "arm" the system was spinning off.
Panning further to the south.
Very low topped structure, which was expected. That wind shear was knocking those towers over as soon as they seemed to glaciate. We still had some hope at this point, however. The towers to the south were still rotating around to the south up toward us.
Nice sunburst. I really need to go out shooting more. My exposures are really disappointing me lately. Nothing impressive at all yet. We saw a few lightning bolts and some newly developed rainshowers but that was about it.
Now it gets kind of interesting. We figured it was just another bust and set back for home. It was getting relatively late and we weren't really looking forward to the trip back home (a little under 5 hours). We set off back east, then north to 20.
I kept looking over my shoulder making jokes at some weak lowering behind a new rain shaft that was pretty heavy. Joel and I were basically making fun of this system and were again somewhat bummed out over another bust. As we kept an eye on it, the slight bowl shape it first took on was now getting a little more definitive. Wall cloud. We had to stop and watch this now. A few times it really looked interesting, but it would get better. That barn in the shot above was in a bad spot. I should have moved a little further up the road. We really didn't travel too far up the road since we were still kind of pessimistic over the entire thing. We are now in Sherwood in NW Calhoun County.
It was really showing some classic wall could structure in a hurry. The base pretty much went from completely flat and boring to this lowering that was continually changing shape. After a few minutes I could definitely see the rotation through the zoom lens. It was anything dramatic, but it was rotation nevertheless.
A few minutes later. It was starting to look really nice and our hopes were now actually pretty high that we might actually seem something drop.
A few funnel clouds were witnessed in this sequence, some that reached about 2/3 of the way to the ground. We didn't know it at this time, but this storm was actually tornado warned with a clearly visible hook echo on radar.
We were obviously at the tip of the white arrow, looking west. You can see the hook on radar. Storm motion was to the NNE at this point. That arc of storms is the spinoff from that low pressure system just to the west of this reflectivity.
Very interesting motions at times, but still not strong rotation. A little RFD cut or something right about now would have been nice.
I saw this a little after it looked as if the wall cloud was disentegrating. From my vantage point, it looked as it if had the best rotation yet, but I really have no idea. After watching the video it looks like it could have had something, but it still wasn't anything to write home about. Did I ever mention my zoom lens SUCKS?
Now if you look on that radar image above, you can see a new cell firing to the south of our last one. The wall cloud was quickly swallowed back up into the base and showed no more signs of reorganizing. After that ordeal we were kind of geared up for the next cell. From the start it looked pretty nice, showing another lowering but without rotation. There was a nice, sharp precip shaft and lightning was really picking up now. It was looking pretty nice.
Just couldn't muster up enough motivation.
Oh well! It was a nice try. So we went O for the season. Given the amount of times we were actually able to chase, I'd say this year hasn't been too terribly bad. We were VERY close on a few occasions of seeing a tornado, but for some reason just didn't happen. Hopefully next year will bring us some much better luck.