My last Plains chase of 2013 was another
slight risk, upslope play. Initially, we started the morning in Pierre, SD rushing out of the hotel to intercept an eastward moving, severe
MCS heading out of the Badlands. Just as we left Pierre, we ran into a bit of small hail from developing elevated cells. After we cruised away from that convection, we hurried down to White River, SD where we caught up with the mini-bow echo just west of town. Unfortunately, stratus ahead of the storm complex prevented any sort of visual of the structure. We retreated to White River due to wind driven hail concerns and had a wonderful view of the whale's mouth at the Gus Stop II gas station (I find myself here every year!). After this passed, we continued on towards our target region west of a Chadron to Scotts Bluff line -- we were tied to this western target since we need to be at DIA by 10 am the next morning. We viewed a bit of mammatus north of Mitchell, NE and the intercepted a series of multicells in far eastern Wyoming. The southern most cell eventually took on a supercellular appearance on radar as we sat directly under the convergence in the updraft region of the storm. This storm was not overly pretty, but did drop baseballs north of Torrington. We ventured north after the core to play with a bit of the hail, which was a very cold experience -- the outflow was extremely chilly with this storm. We watched the sunset and caught some evening lightning south of Torrington as elevated convection continued to develop atop the cold dome. Overall, a nice peaceful close to my 2013 Plains excursions.
Whale's Mouth at White River, SD
Mammatus north of Mitchell, NE
Hail stripped trees and covering the ground near Torrington, WY
Eyeballs -- I mean hail -- covering the roadway near Torrington, WY
Sunset south of Torrington, WY
IC lightning south of Torrington, WY
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