Unlike the Great Western Derecho, which roared into the Badlands larger and more severe in intensity, yet more skeletal in cloud-form, this severe-thunderstorm complex had grown a well-developed shelf cloud for well over two hours and a hundred miles, and sent it careening through the gem of Great Plains national parks, to the dismay of campers and hikers. As common as raging outflow is on the High Plains, and as many of these as I have witnessed, I never cease to appreciate their grandeur, nor to imagine how fearsome and unsettling this kind of process had to appear to wagon-riding pioneers and sod-house homesteaders newly transplanted from their relatively tranquil former residences in the East. For as many of these as brought merely wildly interesting clouds, strong wind, refreshingly cool outflow and needed rain, at least as many others fronted destructive gusts, deadly lightning, huge hail, and flash floods.
6 NW Interior SD (10 Jun 24) Looking N
43.7957, -102.0456