48 SD-NE Chase 23 May 2006

Date: 23 May 2006

Location: Platte, SD to Stickney, SD to Grand Is, NE

Chase Partner: Fred the F5

Summary: Woke up early in North Platte, NE and looked at the outlooks and saw a 10% circle in extreme Northern NE and right up the middle of South Dakota. Checked out some models and decided to target near Mitchell, SD. Got to near Winner, SD and storms were already starting to fire all over the place around 1400. Had a really bad thought when this happened as everything would probably congeal into a big mess. And thats pretty much what happened. I managed to get on the Brule county storm which was the first Severe warning of the day and thought maybe I would get lucky. It was HP right away and showed no real signs of rotation. Road network made me core punch not once, but twice. Finally broke out of it near White River and decided to head south to intercept something a little more appetizing. Only nothing was there except a line of outflow driven storms. Ran into something interesting near Strickney, SD. Looked like a nonrotating wall cloud, but I think it was really just a cool formation on the leading edge of the squall. Ended up heading down to Grand Is just in case any of that turned into something good. Did see some EXCELLENT mammatus clouds on the back side. Nothing really evolved down there either except a squall. Called it a day and headed back to Denver.

Initiation starting west of Platte, SD.

Brule County storm right as it went SVR.

Next good storm in the line down West of Stickney, SD.

Leading edge coming right over Stickney, SD.

Mamma at Grand Is, NE