A wide field of mammatus stretched from horizon to horizon over the Buffalo Gap National Grassland, behind a complex of thunderstorms that started as separate areas of storms over the Badlands and parts of northern Nebraska (distant towers and backsheared anvil). This scene, beneath cool and refreshing outflow air, capped off a fine storm-observing day in southwestern South Dakota, reminding us … [Read more...]
Search Results for: "Jun 18"
Storm Tails
Tail clouds are appendages at least loosely resembling tails attached to thunderstorms, and are not rotating and not tornadic. They can move rapidly horizontally and/or vertically, however. Tail clouds also can occur at all levels, but usually in low to lower/middle parts, such as those seen here as the "Black Hills supercell" as the storm crawled south-southeastward across the southern fringes … [Read more...]
Black Hills Supercell
Rising up to about 4,000 ft above the base elevation at Rapid City, the Black Hills actually are a low mountain range that initiates thunderstorms regularly in the spring and summer before the surrounding High Plains. This happens in two main ways: 1. Upslope lift of a moist boundary layer, especially in an east or northeast wind (which also lengthens shear vectors to favor supercells under any … [Read more...]
Sunset on the Range
Anvils and trailing precip regions from organized, eastward-moving, forward-propagating thunderstorm complexes usually slope upward gradually with westward extent, the rain gradually becoming lighter. That was the case here, where the resulting large area of the fuzzy cloud underside, and of precipitation aloft, caught the setting sun's light and diffused it marvelously across a big sector of the … [Read more...]
Pleasant Evening by the Bighorns
Following an interesting storm-observing day in the Bighorn Basin and Mountains, a dinner in Buffalo, and a pollen storm unique to our experience, we retreated to our lodging for the evening. Not yet spent, I went back out for the sunset and was glad of it. While not lighting the sky and land aflame with mind-bending color intensity, this more subtle, textured sky still satisfied the thirst and … [Read more...]
Pollen Storm in the Bighorns
Despite doing it for decades, every year of storm observing brings new sights and adventures. This qualifies. After a round of severe thunderstorms rolled off the Bighorn Mountains, a wake low in their trailing outflow pool reversed the easterly flow to a northwesterly direction easily channelized and enhanced in that canyon. In so responding, the winds shook enormous amounts of pollen out of … [Read more...]