Day 167: Green Grass, SD
Those of us involved in VORTEX 2 often joked about how the atmosphere would produce out ideal storm the day after the project ended. Well, we were right.
Tonight in South Dakota, a complex of supercells has developed and is nearly stationary. These supercell thunderstorms have produced what appear to be large tornadoes one right after the other. A chaser in the area has reported seeing at least 13 tornadoes today, 3 of them very large, and up-to 5 at the same time. That is just amazing. The towns of Dupree, SD and Green Grass, SD appear to be the two areas that have experienced the worst weather so far this evening, with Dupree, SD experiencing the worst. The town had numerous tornadoes develop in and around the area, prolonged period of 70-80 mph winds, and frequent bursts of very large hail. I’d be very surprised to hear there is a single building in Dupree, SD that has not been damaged.
The image above depicts what appears to be a tornado moving through the southern portion of Green Grass, SD. Tomorrow, I’ll be interested to hear what kind of damage reports come from this part of the country. This is certainly a very rare, very high impact event. The exact kind of data VORTEX 2 was looking for…
About Patrick
Patrick Marsh is a Ph.D. student at the University of Oklahoma's School of Meteorology. He earned a Bachelors of Science in Mathematics and Physics (cum laude) from the University of Arkansas in 2005 and a Masters of Science in Meteorology in 2007. In addition to working on his doctorate, Patrick serves as the National Severe Storms Laboratory Liaison to the Hazardous Weather Testbed where his research interests lie in working with operational forecasters, data mining, data visualization, and all things high-impact weather. For more about Patrick's work, check out his complete CV!
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