WeatherKnurd.com

Monday May 21, 2007

Partners:
Randy Baker,
Phil Kurimski,
Mark Rader,
Kirk Swain

Target:
Buffalo, SD

Distance:
632 miles

Duration:
˜13 hours

Glen Ullin, ND tornado

And I thought the first day of chasing with my new partners was fun! By morning, dew points in the lower 60s made their way into South Dakota and surged northward into North Dakota. Despite convection in Wyoming and SW South Dakota, we headed northward to Buffalo and checked data at a local library. Then, we continued onto Bowman, North Dakota. While in Bowman, we realized the front had passed to our east. We adjusted our course and were eastbound and down on Hwy. 12, zigzagging north and east to Glen Ullin. Matt Ziebell was located here earlier in the day, but had followed a cell northward by then. We set up on exit 120 and watched a cell develop to our west. Initially, the cell did not look impressive...but we decided to stay and get some pictures of it. We noticed shear funnels on the south side of the storm, but nothing was well organized. Then, a wall cloud developed with very visible cyclonic rotation. The wall cloud was undercut by the RFD, but we noticed the air was not that cold as the wind almost blew my video camera down. Another wall cloud developed behind the original one and a condensation funnel began to make its way to the ground. A brief tornado touched down for 45 seconds, about 5 miles to our west, at 616 pm MDT. Phil quickly called the Bismarck NWS office to alert them of the brief touchdown. A Skywarm spotter viewed another touchdown in the same area. Quickly after the tornado lifted, the storm become linear. We briefly met up with Matt north of Bismarck. After checking data at a Bismark motel, we opted to drive south for part of the night to Pierre, SD. We stayed in Pierre the rest of the night to set ourselves up for the next day's chase.



Precipitation begins to fall as the storm begins to organize
From left: Kirk, Randy, and Phil discuss the developing storm.

The first wall cloud begins to form
The wall cloud matures, with visible striations at the top

The second wall cloud begins to form
A thin condensation funnel reaches the ground...TORNADO!!!

A hawk soars in the foreground as the tornado somewhat thickens
The mature tornado

The tornado lifts
Remnants of the tornado

ZOROCAM II captures the action
Eerie dusk scene as linear storm overtakes us north of Bismark