Chase Day  #6:
571.6  Miles


     Yes...  we put some miles on the 'ol vans today.
     During the morning briefing, we were told that significant storm conditions existed in North & South Dakota.  The plan was to head that way, and make decisions, on what to do, after we got close to anything that was building.
     When we got to McIntash (#B on the map), we decided to forgo any attempt to continue on into North Dakota, and head South towards a strong cell building near the center of the state.
     We lunched at Mobridge (#C on the Map), hung around there for a bit (playing Frisby), and waited untill the storm cell's direction could be projected.  We headed West out of Mobridge and then South toward our destination.
     About 1700 (5:00p) we could see the storm cell in front of us.  It was huge, dark, and beautiful.  We continued on for another 30 minutes, before turning off the highway onto a farm road, where we stopped to set up.  We were just outside of the little town of Isabel (#e on the Map)

 You can clearly see the "Wall Cloud" hanging below the main storm cloud (right of rain).  Wall Clouds are where Tornadoes come from.  This Wall Cloud was rotating







Picture of a "Super Cell"  Very unique structure.






Below is a "Panorama" of our storm.

     Everyone was excited.  We (well Bob our tour guide, really) had put us in the proper place at the proper time to "Deploy" and watch the storm do it's thing.  And do it's thing, it did.
     Now I don't know crap about it, but it had a great "Wall Cloud", "Up Drafts", "A Beaver Tail", "Lightning", "Thunder", "Rain", "Cloud Rotation", and some other stuff I'm not sure of.  What it didn't have was a "Funnel Cloud".
     We all snapped pictures like crazy.  Videos were running, Tri-Pods were being placed, and Mono Logs were being spoken into camera mics.  There were "OOO's" and "AHH's" from everyone.  As pictures were being snapped, people would run from one to another to see what that person had got.  If you were lucky enough to get a Lightning Strike...  Well...  you were King for the moment.
    As the Lightning got closer, Bob would put out the word to, "Get in the Vans", and off we'd go to a spot 20 minutes further up the road, and set up again.  We did this for the next 3 hours, and not one person complained.  We were finally...

"STORM CHASING"

Finally, it was getting dark, and one bolt of Lightning hit kinda close to our group location...  causing Bob to utter, "F--K, get in the Vans!", and we call it quits for the evening (at  9:30p).

     We drove to Kadoka (nice play on the spelling of Dakota), where we spent the night, secure in the knowledge that we were...

REAL STORM CHASERS