Thursday, May 7, 2009

May 6, 2009 Chase Report

Had an impromptu chase yesterday evening as a weak cold front and associated disturbances kicked off thunderstorms yesterday afternoon over northwest Iowa. One cell was able to become severe warned over Osceola county, and within a few minutes was also tornado warned. At this point with the tornado warning I quickly gathered items into the vehicle, then myself along with my dad and fiance hopped in and began our quick chase. Our total path is shown below, under 2 hours of drive time and just under 80 miles round trip make this a very short and good warm-up chase for the northern plains this year.



Our chase led us to intercept the storm near Royal, IA where we encountered mainly nickel sized hail just ahead of the large rain/hail core. It was just about at this point where the storm really dropped all of the energy it had left before rapidly dissipating. Went ahead and drove south just ahead and then as confirmation was received that the tornado warning would be canceled dove back into the core to see if any hail was remaining, and none remained. All in all, a bunch of nickel sized hail and some impressive rainbows (shown below) and a nice impromptu chase in early May for northwest Iowa.

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