May 12, 2022 – Chelsea, SD Supercell

Discussion: This was the second day of 2 straight days of chasing in the northern plains with chase partner “Nathen Erickson”. We decided to setup near Redfield, South Dakota for supercells later in the afternoon capable of tornadoes. While we were sitting at our target location awaiting development, we had a nice conversation with a local sheriff from Spink county. During this time, the SPC issued a particular dangerous situation severe thunderstorm watch for portions of southeast South Dakota and northwest Iowa with the potential of 80-110+ MPH straight line winds. After reading that discussion…I prayed that I would still have a house to go home too after this day. A discrete supercell popped up west of town so we decided to go after that where we saw two funnels and one of which tried to produce a tornado but couldn’t quiet do it. Our storm got cut off later that afternoon so we decided to hold back and setup for lightning photography and capture the supercell that developed further west about an hour before sunset. While my house and much of northwest Iowa was spared from the damage, a large portion of southeast South Dakota took a major hit to destructive straight line winds later that afternoon. As the sun began to rise the following day, the damage could be seen for miles. Our trip home consisted of highway signs on Interstate 29 mangled and twisted. These are the scenes you would see with a tornado but when you factor in wind of that magnitude, that is just as destructive as a tornado. One thing is for certain, South Dakota will be cleaning up for quiet a while. Prayers go out to everyone that was affected and those that lost loved ones from this storm system.