South Dakota - " Under God the People Rule" - Part II

Today, we again woke up in beautiful, boring Murdo, South Dakota. Our goal for the day was to intercept storms on the eastern half of South Dakota, with a pinpoint somewhere near Aberdeen, South Dakota, which is near the north east corner. It would be a somewhat easy drive to get there, and we weren't expecting storms to fire up until the mid to late afternoon. We enjoyed a somewhat laid back breakfast and our daily weather briefing and map analysis. We decided we would first stop by in Pierre to see the capital building and other local sites before jetting north and east to our predetermined target location.

After stopping for a quick photo session in South Dakota's capital, we were heading east when we saw storms beginning to fire on our on board laptop near the Nebraska and South Dakota border. We continued east, checked out models, used forecasting tools and plotted a route to Miller, SD, where we could then stop for a quick lunch and make any further decisions about the remainder of chasing today. Upon arriving in Miller, we at at Dairy Queen, which was the local hot spot apparently, and again looked at what the storms appeared to be doing. Today would be the best day we have had thus far for many reasons.

We ate as quickly as possible and made for the eastern fourth of South Dakota to finally get our chance to intercept some cells that began to pop up on radar and satellite images. We had put ourselves in the perfect position for these storms. When we finally got into the war zone, we cranked up the radio in van 2 and played the chasing favorite, Child in Time, by Deep Purple. It really got us into the chasing mentality as we approached building cumulonimbus clouds. We stopped once in an area near a field to view the building of a strong cell to our north and east. It was very impressive, with heavy precipitation and decibel readings on the radar. Unfortunately, we couldn't see much other than the underside so we made the choice to shoot south down some rough country roads in hopes to see more separated cells that we could see the towering tops of. We got lucky and pulled off a second time to witness a strong thunderstorm building with a clearly visible inflow tail, which had apparently not been seen before by a Ball State storm chasing class, and also many heavy rain bands. Still, we saw no real severe weather, and the storms were all eventually dissipating as they headed further north. We made our way east and made an emergency decision stop at a small ice cream parlor in the middle of nowhere. The locals seemed to be stressed upon our arrival in rain gear and fast exits from the vans. Upon further investigation, we found out that a few years back, the nearest town had been hit pretty bad by a tornado, so upon seeing us in chase mode, they feared the worst. We reassured them they appeared to only be in for heavy rain, and they relaxed just a bit. The storms were also weakening in the area and formed a squall line of sorts, so we made our way east to Mitchell, which was off of interstate 90 to hopefully enter a warm sector of air in hopes of finding more strong storms.

We got off the interstate and stopped in a Sinclair gas station where we would decide our next move. The choices were head north to continue with the gradually weaker storm systems, or just call it a day with great video footage and photographs. We all had seen enough, and decided to head back west towards Rapid City to stay the night, because the next few days or so would most likely be spent as tourists rather than chasers, and if we spent several days and came within 30 miles of seeing Mt. Rushmore and never visiting, that would just not seem right. So before leaving Mitchell, SD, I convinced everyone that we should check out their world famous "Corn Palace," just because it sounded like a really strange tourist destination, so why not. We arrived in the midst of a downpour with pea sized hail from the storms we chased earlier, and got a few photographs before leaving.

We stopped for dinner at "Al's Oasis," where for the second day in a row I decided to have the buffalo burger. It, again, tasted much like any other burger, but it is what it is. We soon departed after hopping onto some ceramic buffalo statues out front and made the last trek to Rapid City, South Dakota. That is where I am writing this tonight. We are staying at a very nice hotel with an indoor pool/slide that we tested out earlier this evening. Tomorrows plans are still up in the air, although I know almost for a guarantee that we will be visiting Mt. Rushmore and the Crazy Horse monument in progress. After that, the possibilities are endless. I thank you for taking the time to read and follow our storm chasing trip. Feel free to make comments, suggestions for tourist ideas, and whatnot. Thank you.

South Dakota - " Under God the People Rule" - Part I

I apologize for not blogging the other night, we just got back pretty late from Nebraska and Rapid City. I know, excuses are excuses, but after driving 500+ odd miles, it wears you out just a bit. Any who, lets get to the stories, pictures and action.

Sunday started out as usual, only this time in Murdo, South Dakota. Murdo is home to the Pioneer Auto Museum and The Rusty Spur Saloon, and other than that, not much. The day started off as just a sightseeing trip in western South Dakota, and ended up to be much more, well kinda.

Our first stop for the morning was the worlds famous Badlands National Park. If you have never seen, heard of or been to the Badlands, you should see them for yourself because they are nothing short of spectacular. We happened to see them on one of their only cloudy days of the year, as much of the morning was overcast and reasonably chilly, enough so that most of the team was wearing jeans, jackets and sweatshirts. We took many photos and also a reasonable amount of video of the park itself, and the fellow members of the class. After stopping at every possible pull off location, God only knows why, we had a brief stop for lunch at a local eatery and I had my first experience with buffalo. No, not the hot sauce, rather, a buffalo burger. Apparently, they are much more lean and healthy for you than its cousin, the hamburger. Now, I'm not going to tell you it was the most delicious thing I have ever eaten, because it wasn't. It didn't really have a distinct taste, in fact, it just tasted like a regular hamburger with none of the grease. Sorry to disappoint.

After the Badlands we headed west on I-90 en route to Rapid City. Our plans were to visit the popular tourist attractions and then move back east somewhat to position ourselves for tomorrows chasing chances in eastern South Dakota and Nebraska. Have I already talked about the part where the plans you make never actually pan out? Well, the skies south of us in central Nebraska had cleared out and daytime heating took place, setting up a chance for storms to explode over Colorado and Western Nebraska. We noticed these taking place when we were just outside of Rapid City, and our plans took a turn south and we again found ourselves crossing into the northern Nebraska border in an attempt to intercept some unorganized cells. Of course, with our luck two things went terribly wrong. While driving south, our magnet for van 2, my van thus far, got blown off the side by either a strong gust of wind, or from the gust off of a semi. Either way, we lost it, possibly for good. The second problem was that we failed to take in to account the colder air to the north which was pressing down. Although storms were firing strong in the warm sector, the moment the came into contact with the colder air, they then fizzled and died. This of course makes for terrible chasing, and in other words, basically a 4 hour detour.

So after snapping a few somewhat mediocre photos and videos, we headed back our same route, one, to look for our magnet, and two, to stop in Rapid City for a bite to eat. Unfortunately, our magnet was not to be found and upon entering Rapid City, we were met with quite a bit of rain, just in time to run into our restaurant, which was full so we then ran to another one a couple of blocks away and had an all you can eat pizza bar, which wasn't so hot, but food is food. We ended up leaving quite late and decided to book the same hotel in Murdo, about two and a half to three hours from where we were. After arrival, we were very tired for the most part, and we wanted to be well rested for the next day, which would be looking like the best day possibly all trip for chasing storms on the Great Plains.