6/21/2009
Had a pretty good chase day Sunday June 21st out in north-central Iowa. There was a warm front lifting across the state and a surface low was poised to the northwest in the Dakotas. Surface winds were backed very nicely over Iowa and copious (and I mean COPIOUS) amounts of low-level moisture were streaming in from the south. Dewpoints over most of the state were well into the 70s by afternoon. Surface CAPE was pushing 4,000j/kg by mid-afternoon. Only real thing lacking was better mid and upper level wind velocity, but directional shear was still fantastic.
I left Erie around noon and headed west on I-80. Eventually I found myself up east of Ames by mid-afternoon. Right after I stopped and topped off the gas tank I noticed a few storms firing south of Fort Dodge on radar. I didn't have a laptop today, so I had to rely on my Blackberry for radar and other internet info. Sort of awkward at first, but I got used to it. Actually was very helpful throughout the chase. Anyway, I was tempted to run off after the storms near Fort Dodge but I waited a little bit just to make sure they were the ones I wanted. At this point there were towers going up all over and I didn't want to get stuck north of the best cells. By around 4pm I could tell the stuff around me wasn't gonna make it. They just started getting that dry look to them as if the cap was holding them back. So at that point I hopped on route 65 out of Colo Iowa and headed north. A few COD meteorology vans flew by me on this road probably doing 70+mph. I could see some rock-hard looking towers to the northwest as I continued north.
As I continued on I noticed a red square on radar southeast of Fort Dodge. First tornado warning of the day. That definitely put a smile on my face. I turned west at Hubbard and headed west towards Radcliffe. Right around here I noticed a lowering on the storm to the northwest that was tornado warned. It was still a good 15-20 miles away, but because it's so flat out in this area I could see it quite well. I kept on driving towards it and snapped several pictures along the way.
I pulled off a few times to get pics of the wallcloud to the northwest. I was being chased by a new storm going up to the south.
This innocent looking rainshaft quickly intensified and eventually developed into a supercell that dropped a tornado I later caught north of Eldora. More on that later.
So I continued a bit further west to get out of the way of the newly forming rain to the south that was pushing north right at me. Once I got far enough west I stopped on a nice backroad southwest of Buckeye. At this point I was watching three separate storms. The one with the wallcloud to my northwest....
...and a newly tornado warned storm to my southwest...
...and the new storm coming up from the south that was now to my east
It wasn't long before the cell to my east became more interesting. It was developing a nice bowl shaped lowering quite quickly, even though the storm wasn't very old.
At the same time the weakening wallcloud to my northwest dropped this interesting little funnel.
The storm to my southwest looked interesting for a bit, but quickly became outflow dominant as it undercut itself shortly after producing a weak wallcloud.
With the cells to my northwest and southwest crapping out, and the new storm to the east going crazy, I knew what to do. I left that spot southwest of Buckeye and went east to catch up with the new storm. Didn't take long to catch it since it was moving so slowly. All the while the wallcloud was getting bigger and bigger, and looking better organized. I positioned myself due south of it southwest of Owasa where I snapped these pictures.
There was a tornado reported around this time. You can see in the pictures that there was some very low hanging cloud features, but with the trees there I couldn't confirm ground contact. What you can see in those pictures though is a very nice RFD cutting in. You also can't see how quickly that whole thing was rotating.
I followed the wallcloud further east and finally southwest of Cleves it produced a tornado (at least that I saw).
After the tornado became rain-wrapped I hopped on route 20 and flew east to get ahead of it all. In the distance towers were going up. Very soon after going up this one already develops a nice lowering. The thing barely has a rainshaft and it already looks like this. Impressive!
After I got far enough east I stopped west of Dike and took a few pictures looking westward. At this point it was a fairly larger supercell that was turning east-southeast in it's movement. The structure of this storm was pretty sweet! Wish I had a wide-angle lens to have captured it all better.
Another wallcloud was visible to my southwest here. At times there were a few funnels but I couldn't see any land contact.
That quickly wrapped in rain and I again headed east past Dike. I found out later that parts of Dike were hit by a weak tornado. Guess I should have stuck around longer.
I decided to leave the HP mess behind me and head east towards that new cell firing that way, the one in the previous picture. By this point it was looking even better with a broad mesocyclone. I got off on the Cedar Falls exit and pulled off and snapped these shots.
I made a run at the tornado warned cells down south west of Iowa City but got there a bit too late as darkness was setting in.
Below are a few radar grabs from the day...
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