I would probably consider this my best chase of 2009 and one of the best I've had to this point. I was treated to two BEAUTIFUL supercells across the barren land of central South Dakota. Unfortunately I got a bit of a late start on the long drive out to the area, but once I got there I knew it was worth it. The first storm I got on was already tornado warned and had been for a while. Other chasers I've talked to have said that there was no tornado before I got on the storm which makes me feel good because I'd be pissed if I missed the tornado because I was running a bit late. Stopped about 15 miles from the storm since I had a fantastic view of the base and the anvil all in the same shot. However this decision would cost me the chance to follow the storm southeast as there were no real road options south from where I was. The only roads were dirt roads which would not have been easy to drive on for the amount of time I would've needed to be on them to get back to a paved southbound road. So after a bit 20 minutes of watching the storms and then trying to use the dirt roads to chase the storm I gave up on it since I realized there was no way I could catch up with it. Plus, there was another non tornado warned supercell just to the north (altough it did have a severe thunderstorm warning on it). Waited about 7 miles south of Midland to watch the northern storm and get about 20 minutes worth of timelapse video. This was a perfect position for me since the storm was moving towards me and the road I was on went north giving me a great view of the base from the southeast. This storm definately had a different look to it. Altough it wasn't tornado warned it did have a good amount of inflow. And despite it's outflowish look, it definately was inflow dominant, which is good. Storm motions on both storms were pretty slow, at about 20 mph. Was able to pull off to the side of the road and watch the second storm for a while without even having to think about moving. Got some more timelapse video. Unfortunately there wasn't much going on at the base, atleast that I could see. There was some sort of RFD plume or something right in front of the wall cloud that I could sort of half see. The timelapse shows obvious rising motion behind this plume. So after realizing that the storm wasn't doing much I decided to get back on I90 and head west to wait for storms coming out of Montana/Wyoming. As I was on my way back to the interstate I noticed that the base of the storm had started to get more active and the rising motion had all of a sudden picked up as well. Thinking to myself, this storm is starting to really get its act together, maybe I'll watch for a little bit more. Long story short the storm really picked up but never produced a tornado, although it definately tried. It was a bit of a different chase, I chased 2 storms and was done by about 7 pm. Headed back east to get close to position for a chase in Minnesota the next day.

 

This is what I saw for most of the drive up to the storm. What is hanging low to the ground in NOT a tornado or even a funnel. Seeing a couple other people's report who were right under the base this feature was definitely not anything close to tornadic.

 

 

 

The same thing can be said for this pic:

 

 

 

 

This is pretty much the same pic but just a bit more zoomed in. I still can't get over the feeling of being out there in the middle of nowhere with the beautiful rolling landscape of Central South Dakota watching a tornado warned storm. Doesn't get much better than that!

 

 

 

So after watching the above storm for about 20 minutes I decided it was time to move south to stay with the storm. The only problem was that there were no paved roads to the south of where I was, only hilly, dirt roads. I tried to do my best on the dirt roads but it was taking me way too long to get to where I needed to get so I gave up on the dirt roads as I really didnt want to chance getting stuck on the middle of an indian reservation so I bailed on the above storm knowing that there was a severe warned storm to my north I could play with. Unfortunately, the storm I just bailed on would go on to be one of if not the most photogenic storm of the year. But it doesnt hurt as much since I'm about 99.5% sure I was the only one chasing the storm a little farther north.

 

More Pics will be added soon