The target was eastern Wyoming into southwestern South Dakota. We hung out at the hotel in Hot Springs for several hours. Finally, we decided to go west out of Hot Springs toward Edgemont, South Dakota. About thirty miles north of our location, a supercell had formed. The storm was in the Black Hills forest, so there really wasn’t a path to intercept. We decided to set up east of the Black Hills and hope the storm would hold together toward Highway 79 east of Hot Springs. Unfortunately, the storm got “eaten” by the cap. After hanging out with the mobile mesonets on a dirt road east of 79, the field coordinators decided we would head back to the hotel and monitor the weather from there.When we arrived, several of the guys got together to play football in the parking lot while we waited. After a while, we heard through the grapevine that the FCs had called “end of mission.” Brian Baker (FC driver) informed me that he would be driving to Rapid City, South Dakota to drop Erik Rasmussen off at his hotel (Erik would be flying out in the morning). Brian asked me to join him to keep him company on the way back. I agreed.
When we arrived in Rapid City, we decided to grab a bite to eat. We found a little Italian restaurant on Microsoft Streets and Trips that looked interesting (“Botticelli’s Italian Restaurant”). We parked the mobile mesonet downtown and, as usual, immediately attracted the attention of the locals. I’ve gotten a bit tired of answering their questions, but fortunately, Erik was up to the task. A group of (relatively) young and somewhat inebriated ladies asked us if we chased tornadoes. Upon hearing the answer in the affirmative from Erik, she responded “Then why are you in Rapid City? There aren’t any tornadoes around here!” I laughed as I noted her considerable observational and reasoning abilities.
After we ate, we left to drop Erik off at his hotel. Erik had forgotten which hotel, and we needed to get on the internet. The keyboard of the computer in the mobile mesonet didn’t work at first. After rearranging the batteries (it’s a wireless keyboard), I was able to get it working. However, when we tried to use the data card to access the net, we realized that the net was so slow that by the time we got Erik’s hotel info, his plane flight would be in the air. By some miracle, Erik was able to connect to a hi-speed WiFi hotspot at a convenience spot. Finally, we were able to find Erik’s hotel, and we dropped him off. We arrived back in Hot Springs about an hour later and went to bed not long after.
Weak supercell in the Black Hills Forest, South Dakota.
Sean Waugh was interviewed by the Weather Channel.
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