Long Trek across the Northern Plains

February 3, 2014 by · Comments Off on Long Trek across the Northern Plains
Filed under: Summary 

near Linton ND and Mound City SD
20Jun 13

SHORT: Long drive Roundup-BIS-MBG, supercell becoming outflow-dominant near SD-ND border.

LONG:
Decisions, decisions…what should we do? We almost threw in the towel on the chase day at MLS, figuring that
* Potential along the pertinent boundary might be E of the longitude of BIS–a 4-hour drive plus whatever time it took from BIS to any storm;
* Cutting a short diagonal down US 212 into Belle Fourche and perhaps the RAP area would put us a lot closer to the next day’s apparent target of south-central/southwestern SD;
* Busting along the boundary near BIS would put us an extra 3 hours out of the way for the following day and save more than a tank of fuel.

Yet, somehow we were feeling adventurous with the more conditional advantages, including greater moisture and potential boundary augmentation to low-level shear and SRH–not to mention that cutting SE toward RAP would guarantee we’d see no storms. These are the quandaries commonly faced by storm observers roaming the Great Plains every spring! Had we cut SE on a relaxing, between-chase-day drive to Belle Fourche or RAP, I would have had little regret, given that the storm ultimately was a big mess. Still, one doesn’t necessarily know storm-scale details 5 hours out. In the end, we had some good times and good photos around that storm, so no regrets over the decision to roll into the Peace Garden State.

Driving from Roundup to Forsyth (along I-94) is a sobering experience–beautiful northern High Plains countryside, but also a “Big Empty” with little along the way save a few ranches and the mostly abandoned townsite of Vananda (old homestead and schoolhouse, now on private property). There are few cars or people, almost no reliable cellular telephone service, and little reassurance of any assistance should an emergency come to pass. One must be self-reliant, confident, and most of all, prepared. Fortunately, we were, and no dire situations arose. We hit Forsyth and cruised up to MLS for a final decision on whether or not to attempt a storm intercept that day.

Lunch in MLS put food in tummies and insight in brains regarding the strong outflow boundary from the previous nights’ MCS that was retreating NE across MT and parts of western and southern ND. The mild cold front that gave us such a splendid and dry commute to MLS intersected the outflow boundary in the MT/ND border region, but stronger low-level lift and moisture each were forecast farther ESE and SE along the boundary in ND. How far? It was hard to tell, but a visually evident string of towers to the distant ENE-ESE helped us to decide to take a chance on a storm.

The trip toward BIS on I-94 seemed to take hours…and it did! That was a whopper of a drive. Passing DIK, we learned of a storm rapidly forming SE of BIS. Stopping at a rest area between DIK-BIS, we re-evaluated the scenario. Thinking the storm might be too far away, with no evidence of closer development along the boundary and the sun angle getting low, we considered bailing S into SD W of BIS.

Ultimately, we figured that
* The storm SE of BIS, which was becoming supercellular fast, was likely to remain nearly stationary as long as it stayed well-organized, and
* There would be enough daylight to reach it with about an hour to spare.
And so we went, fueling in BIS with gasoline for car and chocolate-mint milkshake for driver, then heading E and S down US-83 toward Linton ND. The storm backbuilt, discretely propagating down a flanking line across the highway ahead of us, but we encountered only rain, a few close CGs, and strong gusts while squeezing ourselves between two cores.

Popping out the south side of the activity near the ND/SD border, it was apparent that the formerly robust supercell was now something else: a quasi-linear slab of updrafts that would get undercut fairly quickly by outflow from the larger cluster of storms that had grown upscale from the original convection (looking W across a glacial lake). We barely stayed ahead of the outflow while navigating a one-lane, pilot-car regulated construction zone just over the SD border. After passing Mound City, we found an old barn to use as foreground for the shelf cloud.

Of several shots taken there, this was my favorite. Meanwhile the owner, a local farmer, regaled us with tales of the history of the place, including the original barn’s late-1800s construction by homesteaders, and the additions in the mid-1900s. The creaky edifice was riddled with holes and leaks, and he was going to take a bulldozer to it the next day–if the storm didn’t push it down first. Ironically, he also had just returned from LWT recently, but for the purpose of buying and hauling back a choice bull for his herd.

As long as nothing meteorologically urgent is compelling departure (and it wasn’t), conversations with rural folks on the Plains have been some of the most interesting parts of these travels for me. Though a big-city native, I’ve always had a deep, strong, alternatively conscious and subconscious tug toward the country, probably due to the farm upbringing of my dad and long-ago stories thereabouts. Those helped to imbue in me a deep respect and appreciation for the honest, authentic, hard-working, self-reliant, diligent, steadfast, frugal, faithful and neighborly values of the Middle American farmer and rancher. Such interactions always reinforce that sense of honor.

Outflow hit, and we parted ways with the South Dakota farmer to get back ahead of the weakening density current and watch the sunset across another glacial lake. While I was almost too fixated to the WNW, Elke brought my attention to a subtle but splendid scene of beauty unfolding in the opposite sky.

MBG was the nearest town with a motel, so we headed there for the night–only to find:
1) very slow service in the Burger King drive-through, over 30 minutes behind just 3 cars, and
2) that some combination of lake gatherings, family reunions and a fishing tournament had filled all rooms but an upstairs one at one motel we didn’t particularly like–the Mobridge Kountry Inn (obviously a recycled 1980s-vintage Super-8). When I told her the reason for our later-than-forecast arrival, the east-Indian proprietor at the motel was quite eager to badmouth the “horrible, lazy American kids” and their service at the Burger King. She acted like she hated living there. Granted, while the inexcusable untimeliness of the “horrible American kids” at that Burger King certainly didn’t exemplify the work ethic of the nearby farmers, her attitude also was bothersome.

Storm-observing vacations always are an adventure. In the morning, we both had bites in places a mosquito couldn’t have attacked. Though we took the beds and sheets completely apart and found no bedbugs, we suspected them. More on the next day in the upcoming story for…the next day!

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Our PING trail for this day. [PING date is ending date in UTC.]