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Had it not been for work this evening I would have easily chased the "real" target of SE MT where Tds in the 60s began pooling by mid day. Instead, I was presented with a backyard chase of sorts when I noticed an interesting cell develop about 50 miles WSW of my location. This cell fired near a strong stationary front and despite a cool-ish northeasterly low level flow, Tds were around 50° and shear was fantastic. Here's a crude sfc analysis w/SBCAPE from when this supercell was in progress. |
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Upon arriving north of Tampico, I
wasn't too impressed with the structure of the storm. The base was
very linear and void of any interesting features. There was however
a flurry of CG activity and I somehow managed to snag the one shown here.
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The storm became more interesting when I noticed intense descent in the RFD. Here's the SW flank of the base and despite no apparent rotation, I had a difficult time dismissing this storm given its looks. |
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It wasn't long before an inflow tail
unfolded to my NNW. With the updraft base now directly overhead,
it was becoming more photogenic.
Sure Montana has sparse roads, but that won't stop me from chasing! The visibility and flat terrain are superb. |
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Looking back to my SW, those strong RFD surges mentioned above had now developed deep, intense pockets of baroclinicity as shown by this highly stretched fractus cloud. The motion was simply insane! |
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Still north of Tampico and looking
NW as downlighting illuminates a massive wall of hail.
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Driving back north to HWY 2 and amazed at the contrast visible here. I would drive NW on HWY 2 to punch the core and see just what this storm had in mind. |
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The hail didn't get any larger than
nickels, although there were hail drifts already forming on the road from
a few inches worth of pea size hail. I didn't have my WxWorx with
me today so I had no clue this storm was becoming a supercell by this point.
I would have continued chasing this had it not been for those darned work
commitments!
Note the thin layer of hail fog on the horizon and rainbow. |
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I drove a short ways north of HWY 2 on some of the most intimidating dirt roads I've ever been on just for the sake of getting a clearer view of the hail fog. After surviving this soupy road, I was surprised to see the hail fog retrograding at a fast clip. Looking NE here. |
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Dense hail fog closing in fast!
I hadn't observed hail fog this dramatic prior to this.
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Okay, it's not the brightest idea to take photos IN hail fog...especially when the temperature drops ~10° and condensation forms on your camera lens! Looking WSW here inside the fog and at that crappy road. |
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When I returned home to get ready
for work I immediately checked the radar to see how this storm was behaving.
Crap! It was a full blown supercell riding along the stationary
boundary and showing good low level rotation. This supercell would eventually
drop 2" hailstones north of Glasgow before dying along the MT/ND border some time later. Odds are good the hail was even larger later on when VILs spiked higher.
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