7/11/17 | Hillsboro, SD

Enhanced Risk

Early in my chasing career, resources were limited – including time. I had my eyes on this event for a few days, but unfortunately the logistics of it involved me driving from Minneapolis to North Dakota with very little time to spare. It was a race against time.

Luckily, I was able to forecast the event quite well and knew what my target area would be early in the morning. I raced to catch up with the event during the afternoon. A supercell had already formed by the time I approached the South Dakota border. I made the decision to go after it, as I liked its location relative to the environment.

The synoptic setup on this day favored high-precipitation supercells with weak mid level wind fields and tons of instability. There was just enough low level shear, however, to support a tornado threat. The supercell quickly became high-precipitation in nature, but did drop a multi-vortex tornado near Hillsboro.

The tornado was wrapped in rain and hail for the majority of its life cycle and after observing the funnel cloud briefly, I decided not to stay in the storm to observe it. I did, however, get a great view of the evolving supercell and avoided significant wind or hail damage.

The drive home this evening was one of my favorites ever – incredible lightning displays and beautiful structure well into the evening as I drove back to Minneapolis.