day 10: the final countdown...
we were greeted this morning by a paper on the windshield of one of the vans with a big N on it and 'go big red!' underneath. football is serious business. got a good laugh out of it.
we're in storm lake, iowa, for the night - easily the nicest place we've stayed thus far. a small group of us split off to head to a thai/laotian (i think?) restaurant, while the rest headed to a steakhouse/bar type place. the green curry was awesome! we met up their later and the group makeup changed a little - went in for some drinks (and cake! it was the owner's wife's birthday).
one of the huge things i've noticed out here in the plains, in these small towns, is that people are incredibly friendly and will speak to total strangers in the street, in a parking lot, in a restaurant, just to say hi. you get that to some degree in blacksburg i think, but not nearly as much. it's almost another world and a really nice experience.
anyway, the models tonight - and earlier this morning, for that matter - look promising for supercells up towards minnesota, south dakota, and here in iowa. we're heading to sioux falls in the morning and re-evaluating from there.
we also got a bit of interesting news today. remember the storm tuesday? turns out that that particular cell is something of a historical event - vortex2 managed to get some good data on it, and it is now the best documented left-moving supercell - the data is stuff that will likely be analyzed and studied for a long time. when a storm splits like that left-movers usually aren't the ones that strengthen like that. the storm was definitely anti-cyclonic for some time, with rotation in excess of 150mph - and we did indeed see a funnel cloud in the field! it was prevented from touching down by outflow, apparently, but it was almost there. i'm really wishing, though, that we had been able to see a tornado when we intercepted the storm the first time (which was definitely before vortex got to it, it seems) - an anti-cyclonic tornado is a really rare thing.
so yeah we witnessed a major event in weather history, and we saw it at the best possible time too! pretty awesome if i may say so.
tomorrow will be an early morning and likely the last chase day...hoping for the best...as always!
we're in storm lake, iowa, for the night - easily the nicest place we've stayed thus far. a small group of us split off to head to a thai/laotian (i think?) restaurant, while the rest headed to a steakhouse/bar type place. the green curry was awesome! we met up their later and the group makeup changed a little - went in for some drinks (and cake! it was the owner's wife's birthday).
one of the huge things i've noticed out here in the plains, in these small towns, is that people are incredibly friendly and will speak to total strangers in the street, in a parking lot, in a restaurant, just to say hi. you get that to some degree in blacksburg i think, but not nearly as much. it's almost another world and a really nice experience.
anyway, the models tonight - and earlier this morning, for that matter - look promising for supercells up towards minnesota, south dakota, and here in iowa. we're heading to sioux falls in the morning and re-evaluating from there.
we also got a bit of interesting news today. remember the storm tuesday? turns out that that particular cell is something of a historical event - vortex2 managed to get some good data on it, and it is now the best documented left-moving supercell - the data is stuff that will likely be analyzed and studied for a long time. when a storm splits like that left-movers usually aren't the ones that strengthen like that. the storm was definitely anti-cyclonic for some time, with rotation in excess of 150mph - and we did indeed see a funnel cloud in the field! it was prevented from touching down by outflow, apparently, but it was almost there. i'm really wishing, though, that we had been able to see a tornado when we intercepted the storm the first time (which was definitely before vortex got to it, it seems) - an anti-cyclonic tornado is a really rare thing.
so yeah we witnessed a major event in weather history, and we saw it at the best possible time too! pretty awesome if i may say so.
tomorrow will be an early morning and likely the last chase day...hoping for the best...as always!