July 6, 2003 Otoe Iowa

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Well this was supposed to be a pretty decent day a few days out. Models changed a good bit and we were left with very weak flow, weak sfc convergence, and a strong cap. I stayed home till around 4:30 then went ahead and went north for an area north of Sioux City, only because it was so close. The very weak cu field dissipated on my way north. I sat for a short while north of Sioux City and said to heck with it, it's a work night, I'm going back home. 20 minutes into the journey this stratocu field raced eastward. At first it looked like smoke or even an anivl. I got closer to it and it just looked very odd. Then it broke up a bit and the cu started to tower a bit. Game was all the sudden on as we were eroding the cap quickly it appeared.

One area of enhanced tcu were noted east and then those two towers quickly flattened out. It looked bleak again. I started to drive south again and noticed 2 more fat cu to my north, imbedded in the rest of the mix of clouds. Soon all the clouds in the area eroded, expect these tcu. I saw this to my north, consecutive towering cu popping off in the same spot and getting higher each time. I called back to Amos(who was north of Sioux Falls) and reported my confidence that something was going to make it here. A tornado box was issued about this time, but this convection was well se of the se corner of the box. I decided the chase was going to go on, regardless of losing the earlier bedtime by doing so. Man it's odd how we chose our chases this late in the season. In late winter I'd drive a day to see something remotely close to convection. Now it's like, is it worth the couple less hours of sleep for the chance?

Trying and trying, still not really making it. I did download a radar image at this time, to see if it was even showing up and it was, but just barely.

Sitting in the same spot, looking nw at the boundary this was popping on. It was 89/77 at this time with very little in the way of sfc winds.

Go! The loss of updrafts behind it started to concern me.

It was like this one last push was just enough to help what was already up there to move just a bit higher and this actually seemed to do the trick-albeit briefly.

Nice reds at sunset.

Hope went way up at this point, as the updraft seemed be becoming well established.

Well established for perhaps 15-20 minutes :(. There was an obvious clear notch already, along with a bit of a beavertail. This updraft was now quite fat.

I went from ready to go home and be in bed by 10 to ready to chase this thing to IL in a matter of 10 minutes. I really thought this was going to go nuts for a good while.

Reality quickly set in. In the previous images there was lots of lightning activity. Now, zero and losing structure fast. You can kind of note the low level features here. The last 3 images are from video, the rest from the still cam.

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Well this was supposed to be a pretty decent day a few days out. Models changed a good bit and we were left with very weak flow, weak sfc convergence, and a strong cap. I stayed home till around 4:30 then went ahead and went north for an area north of Sioux City, only because it was so close. The very weak cu field dissipated on my way north. I sat for a short while north of Sioux City and said to heck with it, it's a work night, I'm going back home. 20 minutes into the journey this stratocu field raced eastward. At first it looked like smoke or even an anivl. I got closer to it and it just looked very odd. Then it broke up a bit and the cu started to tower a bit. Game was all the sudden on as we were eroding the cap quickly it appeared.
One area of enhanced tcu were noted east and then those two towers quickly flattened out. It looked bleak again. I started to drive south again and noticed 2 more fat cu to my north, imbedded in the rest of the mix of clouds. Soon all the clouds in the area eroded, expect these tcu. I saw this to my north, consecutive towering cu popping off in the same spot and getting higher each time. I called back to Amos(who was north of Sioux Falls) and reported my confidence that something was going to make it here. A tornado box was issued about this time, but this convection was well se of the se corner of the box. I decided the chase was going to go on, regardless of losing the earlier bedtime by doing so. Man it's odd how we chose our chases this late in the season. In late winter I'd drive a day to see something remotely close to convection. Now it's like, is it worth the couple less hours of sleep for the chance?
Trying and trying, still not really making it. I did download a radar image at this time, to see if it was even showing up and it was, but just barely.
Sitting in the same spot, looking nw at the boundary this was popping on. It was 89/77 at this time with very little in the way of sfc winds.
Go! The loss of updrafts behind it started to concern me.
It was like this one last push was just enough to help what was already up there to move just a bit higher and this actually seemed to do the trick-albeit briefly.
Nice reds at sunset.
Hope went way up at this point, as the updraft seemed be becoming well established.
Well established for perhaps 15-20 minutes :(. There was an obvious clear notch already, along with a bit of a beavertail. This updraft was now quite fat.
I went from ready to go home and be in bed by 10 to ready to chase this thing to IL in a matter of 10 minutes. I really thought this was going to go nuts for a good while.
Reality quickly set in. In the previous images there was lots of lightning activity. Now, zero and losing structure fast. You can kind of note the low level features here. The last 3 images are from video, the rest from the still cam.