Day 4: May 30, 2014

Total Miles: 391 

Total Driving Time: 7 hours and 30 minutes 

Today was our second chase day starting with a weather forecast discussion at 10:00 MDT at our hotel in Rapid City, SD. The convective outlook was not looking as promising as yesterday. The forecasting team wanted to head towards the area around Pierre, SD. We stopped by Mount Rushmore to take pictures before we started chasing. We launched a weather balloon around 1940 UTC in Kadoka, SD. Unfortunately the balloon popped soon after it was released. Instead of going north as originally planned, we went south in hopes of chasing some storms in western South Dakota. We followed a storm in Murdo, SD for some time where we saw some meteorological features such as eddies and an impressive shelf cloud. Some lightning was associated with this storm. After this storm weakened, we headed south to go after another cell. This storm did have some very weak rotation, but failed to produce anything significant. After this storm we headed towards our end location for the night in Sturgis, SD at approximately 9:45 pm MDT. 

Day 3: May 29, 2014

Total Miles: 610

Total Driving Time: 11 hours and 0 minutes 

Today was our first official chase day! We had our daily weather discussion at 9:00 am CDT to determine where we would be chasing. The forecasting team determined that our target area would be west of Bismarck, ND. We stopped in Mandan, ND to launch our first weather balloon at approximately 1830 UTC. We unfortunately lost signal at 740 mb. After lunch, we headed towards a multi-cell storm near New England, ND (~3:45 pm MDT). An impressive anvil and small mammatus clouds were associated with this storm. In the distance both a hail and rain shaft could be recognized. 

  

We continued our first chase day by going after a storm in South Dakota on our way to our hotel in Rapid City, SD (~7:00 pm MDT). The storm was located in western South Dakota approximately 100 miles from WY. This storm had low cumulus clouds and significant lightning. There was no rotation with this storm. We drove through this storm in a safe manner and encountered heavy precipitation and marble sized hail. While driving through the storm, the sunset could be seen in the distance. We stopped in Sturgis, SD to watch the lightning from the storm we just core punched until 9:00 pm MDT. We arrived at our hotel in Rapid City around 10:30 pm MDT. 

Day 2: May 28, 2014

Total Miles: 593

Total Driving Time: 9 hours and 25 minutes

Our day started at 9:00 am CDT with a weather discussion from team one at our hotel in Davenport, IA. The weather discussion included a short-range forecast for possible chasing areas on Thursday and Friday. We left the hotel around 10:00 am CDT to head towards our target location in Bismarck, ND. Once on the road, we began to discuss the possibility of changing our location to call it an earlier night. Everyone agreed to change our location to Fargo, ND. Throughout our drive we did not encounter any significant weather. We arrived at our hotel, Home2 Suites by Hilton at approximately 8:30 pm CDT. We all went out to dinner at Space Aliens Grill & Bar before calling it a night. Thursday was said to be the first official chase day.

Here are some pictures of the hotel and restaurant!

 

Day 1 - May 27, 2014

Total Miles: 840 miles

Total Driving Time: 13 hours and 13 minutes 

Today we began our journey out towards the North/South Dakota region. Initially we wanted to leave around 7:00 am EDT, but due to some troubles with the vans, we left at approximately 9:00 am EDT from Oswego, New York. There were a few bumps at the beginning with van 1’s antenna almost falling off. After resolving that issue, the ride was smooth with little to no traffic through New York and Pennsylvania. We ran into some traffic in Cleveland, Ohio, but did not set us back too much on our travel time. Throughout Ohio and Indiana, storms could be seen in the distance, with noticeable growth with some of the cumulonimbus clouds and impressive lightning. The most exciting storm of the day was while we were traveling on I-90 west in Indiana. We could see the formation and rain shaft of this multi-cell storm (as we were due north of this storm). The rain finally ceased as we entered Iowa, with lightning still being able to be seen from the storms we had passed. We arrived at our hotel around 12:15 am CDT.