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I departed Glasgow, MT rather late this morning
for Plentywood, MT where I stopped for a quick lunch, some data and fuel
before crossing into Canada. This was my first time in Canada and
how appropriate that it was a storm chase!
I drove north to Regina to catch some data at the Inn shown here (forgot its name). Thanks again to the lady working the desk who granted me internet access. Before departing southeast towards the triple point, I took this shot of some meager Cu along the occluded front. |
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About 45 minutes later while heading
southeast on HWY 33, the cap broke big time and within a short time this
Cb materialized. 1637 CDT
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Still on HWY 33 waiting to catch my east road option to get ahead of this. There was another decent Cb beginning to develop farther east of this, but at the time this one was showing more promise. 1656 CDT |
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Keep in mind there was ~40 knots
at 700mb this day and several turkey towers were heavily sheared.
Here is the same storm pictured above as it has now attained LP supercell
structure. This storm is along the warm front, so helicity was not
in short supply. 1710 CDT
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Once I arrived at my east road, I began taking more interest in the easternmost storm which eventually improved to the structure shown here. To my north was the still heavily sheared LP storm, so I had to follow my gut feeling and chase the more robust of the two. I considered possible storm seeding issues if the LP matured, but it had a ways to go. 1736 CDT |
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Continuing eastbound on HWY 13, my
new target storm is still looking very good. 1749 CDT
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Here's the LP supercell to my NNW. The updraft turrets were becoming much more vivid and when a lowered base took shape I figured it might be worth watching for a bit. At this time I could see the lead supercell's base was rather high based with no apparent lowerings. I abandoned my gut feeling from earlier and proceeded north on HWY 9 to get a closer read on this guy. 1801 CDT |
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I noticed the atlas read "Moose Mtn
Prov Park" just to my north on HWY 9, but I wasn't expecting the forest
that ensued! It felt like I was back in WI as dense trees totally
obscured my view of the storm. When I emerged from the jungle, I
took a dirt road west and was finally presented with a clear view of this
supercell. Looking back east at the lead supercell, I noticed it
was still high based and I didn't feel a need to abort this scene anytime
soon. 1817 CDT
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Looking due west here as this storm moves SE. The lead supercell had left behind a compact outflow boundary that was slowly being channeled into this supercell. With this storm looking better, I thought it would eventually begin seeding out the lead supercell. 1831 CDT |
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Still a ways off, but this was the
first funnel I observed after a healthy occlusion cycle. The funnel
lasted for about three minutes. I had the phone number for EC ready,
but my cell signal was nonexistent in these parts. 1835 CDT
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The new meso/updraft core was looking simply fantastic at this point. The supercell is still moving SE and its vault would pass directly overhead. Also, I observed nearly continuous thunder overhead within the anvil and vault region. 1838 CDT |
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Wow. Another RFD notch is already
visible just left of the updraft center. I had the wide angle pulled
all the way out and somehow managed to get all of this in the picture.
This mesocyclone would end up passing just to my south. 1844 CDT
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Looking straight south as a local farmer (way out there) is driving north to see what I'm doing. He didn't seem very intrigued by the storm, but did assure me that the dense trees didn't extend east to my next road. 1845 CDT |
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I was almost certain this supercell
would produce a tornado at this point as it just looked too good not to.
Well, I must have pressured it too much as all this compact lowering could
muster was a chaotic needle funnel. Very beautiful nonetheless.
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I drove back to HWY 9 to take HWY 48 east, but first stopped to admire this unusual view looking SSE at the LP. What's nice about LP supercells is that they're usually photogenic from almost any quadrant. I've never seen or taken a photo quite like this as its updraft layout resembles the F-117A Stealth! Going by the sign, I'm two miles north of the Red Barn Flea Market (so much for the metric system!). 1855 CDT |
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Here I'm looking SSW while on PR
603 just a short while after the previous shot. It looks like a totally
different supercell! 1901 CDT
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The next RFD blasted ahead and unfortunately the inflow buoyancy couldn't compensate. I can only assume that with the lead supercell having turned more sharply to the SE than this supercell, the cold pool was contaminating this guy's inflow. This is something I considered earlier when deciding which storm to pursue, but I really liked the potential for this supercell to ride along the lead storm's boundary. Oh well. This is the view just before I dashed south and east to HWY 2 to finally chase the lead supercell. 1911 CDT |
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As I neared Reston, MB (just west of Pipestone),
I noticed this HP supercell's RFD would soon overtake me. To avoid
possibly losing a windshield, I took the only south road option available and then shot east. While eastbound, I could see downlighting in the RFD illuminating a wall cloud well to my NE. What really caught
my eye was the faint outline of a wedge tornado in the shadows beneath the wall cloud.
I snapped three photos, but this was the best one and even this had to be cropped and have the color removed to better show the wedge. According to EC's preliminary survey, this is the Pipestone tornado about the time the damage width grew to 1.1 miles wide On the far right is a blurry photo of WxWorx at this same time showing absolute textbook structure. 2021 CDT Click here for a preliminary tornado and damage survey map from Environment Canada. I compressed the original file and added the points of reference for better visibility. Special thanks to Pat McCarthy for passing this information along. |
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Heading east on PR 345 and having to face another confrontation with the wet RFD. There were no south road options here, so I had to beat it any means possible. Notice the barely visible inflow tail to the lower right of the hailshaft. That inflow let me know I only had to go a few more miles to get on the other side. 2031 CDT |
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At first it seemed I couldn't beat
the RFD core, but somehow I narrowly escaped and was presented with this
menacing front flank updraft with abundant inflow. FYI, just to the
right of the precip core is actually a meso that will produce the next
tornado in five minutes. 2036 CDT
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