July 10, 2008 - SE Saskatchewan Chase Summary

Target this day was Carlyle, SK.  Departed Winnipeg in the morning and drove the 400 km to Carlyle (see map at the bottom), with a brief food/data stop in Brandon.   Hung around Carlyle waiting for things to pop to the west.  Stronger storms outside of the cap were firing to the north.  They would eventually produce at least one tornado and a number of golfball to baseball hail and damaging wind events.  But I felt the potential for big tornadoes was down my way so I hung tough.

In the mid-afternoon, a lot weak storms starting going up to the west.  They were high-based and unimpressive.  I knew I had plenty of time as I was expecting the storms to begin to intensify around suppertime:

Knowing that these storms would only intensity, I decided to drive to Weyburn and head north to intercept this storm.  It kept building a wall cloud on the back side but the updraft would then roll over the raincooled air downwind.  The back-building updraft/wall clouds cycled through this a few times.  I was hoping the storm would take advantage of the shear and start building on the storm's right flank.  Almost on cue, the updraft shifted right and rapidly formed wall cloud on its right flank just NE of Cedoux.  I turned east on the provincial "highway" which, in reality, was a rough gravel road.  The wall cloud grew and lowered as I drove along side to its south.  I was in sunshine which left me with very poor contrast.  It looked ominous, but if it was producing something, I couldn't tell.  Eventually, I got a good view of the modestly rotating wall cloud and called in the report to the weather office:

After a while, I drifted west towards Weyburn to get a better view of the convection.  Sure enough, the cells began to become more rooted in the boundary layer and the bases started to lower.  All convection south of Weyburn and into North Dakota appeared to fizzle at this time.  It had the look of a strong cap.  The humidity and temperatures in the modest SEerly flow at the time didn't feel particularly humid, either.  I was a bit concerned that the CAPE may not be up to snuff for the evening show.  The shear was good and these newly rooted storms were feeling the effect of the shear and humble CAPE:

A big RFD hit as the wall cloud was about to cross the raod ahead of me.  However, it undercut the wall cloud and a big gust front surged southward.  I turned south at Filmore and headed towards Stoughton. South of Creelman, the gust front stalled:

The updraft started to reorganize and Doppler was showing strong rotation and a reforming hook:

Shortly after, rotation and a lowering developed and the inflow strengthened:

Then the RDF blew right throught it again.  Lots of chasers were driving by.  Waved to Ed and Jerrine Verkaik as we passed on the highway.  Old chaser friend Dwight Clarke from Regina stopped by.  We chatted and shared strategies.  We also wondered about a new cell developing just to our west:

We booted south to Stoughton and then went a bit east.  Though radar continued to show a big supercell, the RFD outflow was still dominating the storm.  Dwight decided to go after the west storm, which did produce a tornado not long after.  Since it was getting late and I still has 5 hours back to Winnipeg, I decided to follow the big storm.  Sure enough, the surface based updraft started to reorganize and a big wall cloud formed just north of the highway:

Lots of people were stopping on the highway as the menacing tornado-warned storm approached.  I pulled over for a few photo ops and saw a few more chasers, including a brief "hi" with Reed Timmer and his TornadoVideos.net team.  It was getting very dark when I rolled back into Carlyle, yes, my orginal target.  The HUGE wall cloud was passing just to the west of town.  Though probably not what Environment Canada was hoping for with their tornado warning for that community, it seemed like the majority of the residents were outside in their vehicles or just standing, watching the wicked looking thing on the edge of town.  It was very dark and I high-tailed it east.  I stopped a bit farther down the road to take a couple of pics.  The mother-ship supercell was heading to the SE.  Here's the southern edge:

From there it was 4 hours in the dark back to Winnipeg.  I was treated to a spectacular lighting show most of the way home.  I arrived back in Winnipeg at 2 A.M. having traveled just under 1100 kms.  I had a blast!