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Mother Nature wins again!

25 May had been forecast to be an interesting day of weather to say the least. The storm system that had been responsible for all the action in Kansas was set to slide east and provide some entertaining weather here in Iowa. Due to another situation, I was not able to join to many, many chasers in Kansas over the weekend, as I’d have hoped. Instead I opted for a local Iowa chase.

Having poured over the computer models, I decided to head to North Central / NE IA. A few of my fellow chasers evidently decided the same thing. Having gotten about 30 min from home, the SPC issued a PDS Tornado Watch for a portion of NE Iowa. Ok, so maybe my thinking isn’t all that bad. Rather than taking the quickest way north, I decided to conserve some fuel and head up the way instead (one of many bad decisions!). Storms began to fire to my NW and I decided (again wrong!) to head after the northern cell, approaching Charles City. I booked it north, driving along/beside the southern cell, which of course went on to produce the long track tornado. Of course after I arrived north, the cell turned into an elevated hailer and I booked it back south, in hopes of catching the southern cell, as I was hearing reports of the major tornado. By thing time I was behind it and my southern access was cut off by the massive damage to Parkersburg, etc along Highway 57. I decided to turn around and head back to the interstate along highway 3.

After sliding down the interstate, I noticed some new development SW of Ames. I booked it down to Ames and headed W/SW. Of course, as my luck was running, the cell became outflow dominant and didn’t give me much of anything, but a nice sunset. By this time I was thoroughly frustrated and decided to head home.

Hopefully we can get these gas prices under control, as they’re outrageous! Fueling up at $3.79/gal sucks! Total mileage for this day of frustration: 420. Let’s hope next time turns out better!

M

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Again, didn’t see much, but had some after work fun!

What a long day at work… Wanting to chase and having to do all my normal duties. I did manage to look over the forecast models and do some chase forecasting through out the day. A cold front was forecast to enter the state from the west. 2 areas looked good to me, one being SW IA and the other being NW IA. The SPC made the choice easy, as they issued a SVR watch for NW Iowa about 3 pm.

I managed to scoot out of work about 4:30pm and made my way NW, targeting a Carroll to Fort Dodge line. Storms were already in motion in the Missouri River Valley and trucking east. Tornado potential wasn’t in place today, but I knew that going in.

Heading west on Hwy 175, I decided to pull over about 5-6 miles directly south of Rockwell City. As soon as I came to a stop and rolled down my window, I knew it was going to be a short chase. Much cooler air welcomed me to the area. A beautiful shelf cloud approached, with rolling motion I hadn’t seen before. It was spectacular. I waited for the shelf cloud to over take me and decided to turn around and head back to the SE. Not wanting to core punch, I decided to avoid the hail core which followed me SE. Numerous areas of dust were kicked up in the farm fields. I don’t think they were gustnado’s, as it didn’t appear to be any circulation and they didn’t last for more than a few seconds.

It again wasn’t much, but at least I got treated to one of the best shelf clouds since I started chasing.

M

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