The turn-around period in Denver prior to my final tour was good, in that there was not much weather occurring on the Plains of the United States (and I was not missing anything!). The jet stream had migrated northward, so after the midday guest orientation on June 28, we began our trek northward. This was Tempest’s first “Blum” tour. Jenna Blum, writer of the novel “Stormchasers”, was our host, and our driver was Chad Cowan. It was great having several long-time Tempest guests back with us, including Stacy, David, Rob and Lisa. Our friend Marcia tagged along as the official tour photographer!
There was no convection at all to divert our attention from the empty Wyoming landscape as we headed north on I-25. That evening I shared my forecast thinking for the 29th with CFDG:
It’s not the greatest setup in world history, but I’ve gotta find storms for six more days for this final chase tour. The NAM/WRF indicates a surface low near the MT/SK/AB triple point, beneath 30-35 kt flow at 500 mb. An upper trough is moving into the Pac NW, and the big nearby ridge will be capping most of C and E MT. 700 temps are forecast to be about 12-13 C just N of the surface low, and the model does show a storm near the low. Directional shear appears good enough for a supercell.
We’ll be starting out in Sheridan, and will blast NNW up into extreme sw SK if tomorrow morning’s forecast conditions warrant.
We began June 29th in Sheridan, WY, continued north through Montana, and entered Saskatchewan via U.S. 191 north of Loring. The landscape in this area is wonderfully beautiful and empty, and getting data via cell phone is sketchy. Fortunately, you can see forever, and we could see a semi-healthy cumulus field to our north. This was third time that I would be leading a tour into Canada. The other two times were into southwest Manitoba. This would be the first time, however, that we would be over-nighting in Canada. I had no idea how easy (or difficult) it would be to find a half dozen rooms for our group at the end of the day. I didn’t even know if my phone would work! We reached Swift Current around 00Z (6 p.m. CST), and I went ahead and reserved rooms there. This town is the only one of any size within about 100 miles, and I didn’t want to wind up struggling to find rooms in towns two hours away at 10 p.m., when the sun would be setting! As far as the weather was concerned, our cumulus field had dried up, but there was another convectively interesting area well to the north. In a “now post” to CFDG, I wrote:
Heading N out of Swift Current, SK, at 00Z…the cap is winning thus far, but we were kind of hoping for that up to now since we needed most of the day to get up here from WY.
Supercell and tornado parameters are excellent to our north some 50-80 miles, just NNE of a mesolow in extreme SW SK. A cell is trying to get strong E of Rosetown…we can see its backside, and it has yet to impress. Moisture convergence continues to be very strong in the vicinity of Rosetown, so we’ll keep heading north to try our luck. We’ll need all the extra daylight that we can get.
Northward we continued on Route 4. The speed limit on 4 had been a wretched 45 mph for much of the stretch between the MT/SK border and Cadillac, but was now a reasonable 65 mph. CHECK THAT! The speed limit was posted in kilometers/hr, whatever that is. We drove about an hour north of Swift Current to Kyle, and could see that somewhat smallish CB that was east to northeast of Rosetown. It was in a good spot for strengthening and becoming a supercell, but it was hesitant to get really strong. I was torn. We could drive another hour or two north and northeast to get on the Roseland storm. But, it would be moving northeast towards Saskatoon, and we would wind up three hours from our motel sometime close to midnight —- not an enticing proposition. So, when in doubt, eat! We found a cafe in Kyle and had a good meal. I went outside several times to look at the convection to the north-northeast. It was okay, but not exactly going bonkers. Gad. I was wishing that I had not gotten rooms in Swift Current.
After dinner, around 02Z, there was still plenty of daylight remaining. We went north to between Elrose and Rosetown, and the convection to the north-northeast was a little too far and not impressive enough to bother with. We had a new cell to monitor, to our northwest. This one was near Kindersley, which is about 30 miles east of the Alberta/SK border. The Kindersley cell was smallish and reluctant to get really strong, and I felt that continuing to it would yield little excitement. We stopped and swarmed a very old and abandoned home somewhere north of Elrose along Route 4. The convection to the NNE went on to give Saskatoon a healthy dose of severe weather around midnight. The Kindersley storm split once or twice and remained puny. On our way back south to Swift Current, we observed numerous strong storms nearby with some nice lightning. These were elevated cells which were moving quickly northeast out of Montana.
The chase on June 30 was disappointing. We began in Swift Current, and headed east on the Canada Transcontinental Highway. The target area was a little east or northeast of Regina. My thoughts on the day after lunch at the A & W near Moose Jaw:
Not too sure if today will work out or not. We are heading east out of Regina towards an area of surface wind convergence, in the vicinity of Wolseley in se SK. Models aren’t too bullish on precip prospects. CAPE is good and upper winds so-so. Looks like a developing field of very flat cu to the east and northeast of Regina…plenty of sunshine otherwise.
We continued east from Regina to Wolseley, where I reserved rooms for the night at the Banbury House Inn. Some healthy cumulus started to go up a little west of town, and I thought that we might be in business. The convection pulled us north from Indian Head (on Hwy 1) to Melville and Willowbrook (which is west of Yorkton). We stopped south of Willowbrook and watched some cumulonimbus towers try to strengthen, but the cap was too formidable. There were a handful of old, abandoned places to photograph while waiting for a substantial storm cell. We came up empty and gave up on the day near Willowbrook a little before sunset. Dinner was at a bar in Grenfell.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.