5/13/2007 Storms in Montana

We began the day in Sheridan, WY with an initial target somewhere in the vicinity of Billings, MT. The day appeared marginal, yet had some of the best ingredients we had seen so far this trip. We headed north on I-90 toward Billings, stopping in Hardin, MT to grab some data, lunch, and a game of homerun derby. Sometime in the early afternoon, we noted an outflow boundary on the satellite imagery advancing southward towards Billings. We made the decision to head up to that area. Convection began to fire off the higher terrain southwest of Billings and appeared as though it was going to interact with the boundary. After analyzing some data in Billings, we decided to head west to intercept a storm near Big Timber, MT that was beginning to turn right along the outflow boundary. We made it to Columbus, MT and had a difficult time finding an elevated spot to see the base of the storm. Nevertheless, the storm looked fairly good at this point. However, it quickly became outflow dominant as convection to the north surged ahead of the southern storm. This presented a huge problem as the northern convection intersected our exit route to the east on I-90. East of Billings we got into quite a bit of hail (a ton of marble to penny-sized hail) and some of the most amazing lightning I’ve ever witnessed. The lighting was so vivid that we made the decision to pull the antenna from the top of the car. It was very difficult to get ahead of the core and, in fact, we were in or trailed the hail core for over an hour, finally breaking free near Crow Agency, MT. Based on a quick analysis of our road options (which sucked!) and a conversation with our nowcaster, we decided to continue down I-90 in order to intercept a cell moving eastward across the Crow Indian Reservation. We took some pictures of this high based, but picturesque storm before starting the long drive to Rapid City, SD. Overall, not a bad day considering the big, fat ridge in place across the Plains.

Initial storm near Columbus, MT

Ice maker as it crosses I-90 near Crow Agency.

Ice maker 2.0

pic removed b/c of crybaby culture

Steak and onions ... good! Potato chips ... good! Steak and onion potato chips ... not good!