Storm
Chasing 2006
Matt Beals, Chris Franks, Dave Cousins
Atmospheric Sciences Masters’ degree
students at SDSM&T
(Photos this page courtesy Matt Beals and Eric Kurth)
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June 13, 2006: Chris, Matt, and Dave
The best dynamics looked to be setting up again north of the hills so we drove to Sturgis, SD and were waiting for something to go. On our way up we had notice that a storm in the southern hills was getting stronger by the second. By the time we arrived in Sturgis, we were already almost positive we were going to head back south.
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look to the south from Sturgis tells that we are a little slow and
should have not driven north. A call from John, who was working at the
National Weather Service, confirmed our suspicion. He told us that they were already warning
on it. So we hauled beans to the south.
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Luckily for us the storm was only moving about 10 mph and we caught up
to it. A look from Hermosa, SD as we begin our approach.
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Southwest of Hermosa on the way to Red Shirt, SD…this is looking east toward the Badlands. The worst part of the storm is still to our south but the anvil had already dropped some small hail and rain. Look at the pretty rainbow juxtaposed with the ominous storm clouds. We also encountered about 5 other storm chasing vehicles at this point, including two full size vans from Colorado and some people from California!
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Getting closer.
For more pictures of the hail that these storm chasers encountered, please check out the link that follows.
(photo taken by Eric Kurth)
This picture was taken by Eric Kurth, a National Weather Service employee, at about the time we were picking up all those hail stones. This was one beefy storm…it brings tears to my eye. Look at all that hail falling from the cloud base.
Photos as indicated; text by Chris Franks