Darn — I had conveniently forgotten about this chase day until now. Unfortunately, I now feel compelled to write something to fill in this space for May 8th.
On May 7th, our tour group had a great day observing a handful of tornadoes in Washington County in northeastern Colorado. The severe weather outlook for the next day was looking pretty good (supercells and tornadoes!), but the risk area was well to the east — along the IA/MN border. So, it was convenient that on the 7th the interesting weather fizzled an hour or two before sunset, and we were able to get a jump start on our trek to the east. We were in Cozad, NE, overnight, and continued east and northeast to northwestern Iowa on the morning of the 8th.
The cap was strong on May 8 south of a warm front, which was close to the IA/MN border. We went north through Rock Rapids, IA, and observed development in the area, mostly to our north and northwest in extreme southern MN. I elected to go for a quickly-developing and somewhat discrete storm that was on the triple-point, west of Luverne. It was looking pretty good on radar, with a nice couplet, but as we neared, it was looking cold, outflowish and undercut. This storm was spinning hard, but it could not control the cold outflow pouring out from the heavy precipitation area. So, though the structure was not entirely uninteresting, the storm appeared to have zero tornado potential, and I was somewhat miffed. I don’t think I took any pictures.
We abandoned the storm near Luverne and headed east on I-90 to try to salvage the day. A nice tornadic supercell developed some 40-60 miles to our ENE, but it was moving too fast to the northeast to catch. Other storm towers developed around us in the vicinity of Jackson, or Fairmont, or south of there near the border —- I forget. But, these were unable to get strong. It seemed that upper-level support was ill-timed on this day, and at sunset all we had to look at was some junky towers and a sunset. If I took any photos on this day, I can’t find them. The long drive from Colorado to southwestern Minnesota did not bring the results we were hoping for, but that is part of this storm-chasing game that we have signed on to. The sad part is that 20 years ago I would have been delighted with the undercut and cold storm on the triple point. And now I am hopelessly jaded. Maybe if the light had been a little better…and the cold storm a little more photogenic…
On the 8th we found a motel in Worthington, MN, and on the 9th we repositioned south through western Iowa. There was a threat of severe weather along a front in southeastern MO, but I ignored that. On the 9th we had a nice lunch at Sloan’s Cafe in Sloan, IA, and we wound up in Topeka, KS, in good shape for the severe weather risk in southeastern KS on the 10th.
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