Clark, SD Mesocyclone

Clark, South Dakota Mesocyclone

The National Weather Service in Aberdeen, SD issued a Doppler indicated tornado warning for this storm. This storm had the most tornadic potential of all the storms we saw on the stormchase. All of the pictures below are from parts of the same supercell.

The storm is seen on our SW horizon.	Still NE of the storm.	Striations in the cloud indicate rotation.
Approaching the front of the storm.	A shelf cloud shoots out ahead of the rain shaft.
	The rain-free base comes into view on the SW side.	The storm was elevated. The wall cloud is not as pronounced as it should be.
The updraft area.		Striations in the rain-free base indicate rotation.

A funnel tries to develop.	Looking up the updraft area from behind the storm.	The beginning of the flanking line.
An area of rotation begins at the bottom of a flanking line tower.	A flanking line tower.

The storm did not drop a tornado. The other chasers on the team were yelling at the storm saying, "Is this all you've got!" I was not very comfortable challanging the storm- since it could easily throw a lightning bolt our way. We were in perfect position to launch, but the the storm lacked perfect organization. The storm was actually moving to the SE and the wind was blowing away from the storm in this area. This storm was fueled primarily by lower level energy. Jet stream energy was absent, but if the jet would have been in our area, this storm would have certainly dropped a dangerous tornado within 200-400 yards away.