On Saturday, we busted in southwest Iowa. Simply stated, the cap held. We spent most of the day in Oakland, IA, chilling and playing softball. Overnighted in West Des Moines, IA.Sunday was a tough day -- go southwest into Kansas toward the better mesoscale setup, which would mean arriving real, real late at night in Chicago, or stay in Des Moines and hope that the outflow boundary left by overnight convection would bake and convect, placing us back home in Chicago at a manageable hour. Logistically we had no choice -- we played the northern target. We hit up the Machine Shed for lunch and thereafter spent most of the afternoon in a park in West Des Moines. Toward late afternoon, storms fired along the outflow boundary east of Omaha. These storms eventually strengthened and turned supercellular near Atlantic. We intercepted an HP supercell near Menlo, IA. Boy, visibility was just absolutely horrible on these storms -- less than 5 miles of visibility (if that). There was a layer of low-level stratus that socked in everything.
Storm near Dexter, IA, featuring a wall cloud and lots and lots of stratus socking up everything. Hell, this was one of the better views of the day -- ha!We stayed ahead of the cell as it made its way through Des Moines. We broke of the chase and began heading for home just north of Grinell. We arrived back at COD somewhere around 1 am, I think. I got back to DeKalb after 2 am -- hence, the conclusion of Trip 3 for COD (and my Trip 2 of the season).
Summary map of COD's Trip 3 travels, including overnight stays in red.On a quick note to end: thanks to Matt (my assistant on the trip), Jim (driver 2), and Joe (driver 1), as well as all the students of Ma' Nature, for making it a truly rewarding and enjoyable trip. I'm certain that no matter how disparate our lives are individually, collectively we will all share the same great memories.
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