Yesterday was the quintessential chase day, and I'm thrilled with Team Helicity's first success beyond Illinois!
Tim forecasted everything so well, we took a last glance at the weather models before driving 4 hours west to Rapid City, SD, with a stop at Wall Drug for lunch. What a place- I just can't even describe it. It reminds me of Graceland; I'm glad I went, and I'll be glad never to go back. We had to decide whether to position north or south of Rapid City, since the storm cells were concentrated in both directions, and we picked south. I'm so glad we did!
We managed to get everything but the tornado- and since there were no tornado warnings in the region yesterday, that counts as a success. Rain, lightning, thunder, mammatus clouds, a menacing looking shelf cloud (their bark is worse than their bite) a new bird species for me (lark bunting!), and as we made our way back to Chamberlain for the night, a gorgeous sunset and a pale rainbow. Everyone knows that June rainbows are the best! The feeling of sitting in front of a growling high plains storm, with nothing but the sound of western meadowlarks and lark buntings and the smell of sweet grass just can't be beat.
Today we're repositioning back 4 hours east, to a point south of Minneapolis along the MN/IA border, in preparation for tomorrow. I'm just as happy as can be.
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