CHASE LOG

DATE: May 24, 2004 TIME: 17:00 to 20:00 STATE(S): Iowa

COUNTIES: Boone, Dallas, Story

CHASE CREW: Loren Karr, Fenner Stevenson, and Travis Stevenson

BASE CREW: None CHASE # 6

Day began with cooler temps, highs in mid 60’s, and dew points in lower 60’s.

We left Boone and traveled west on US highway 30. Just west of Ogden we noticed quite a bit of rotation in the clouds. We stopped east of Beaver and assessed the situation. We observed many low hanging clouds, many that dropped down for a minute or two before returning back up to the main cloud. From Beaver we headed south on county road P54. About 3 miles south of Beaver we again stopped to watch the clouds. We held this position for approximately 15 minutes. Again we witnessed many hanging clouds along with dramatic rotation. We tracked the rotation, moving south through Berkley to county road 305^th Street. On 305^th St. we headed east, stopping just west of US highway 169. Again we watched the rotation. We stayed in this location for a few minutes until the precipitation and wind caught up to us. From there we headed south on US 169, then west on IA highway 141 to Woodward, where we turned north on IA highway 210.

While driving through Woodward, the precipitation caught up to us again, and as we curved east out of town, we were hit by heavy rain and high winds. We managed to outrun the heavy rain, and when we entered Madrid we decided to go to the south end of town and see if we could see any rotation. As we stopped at the cemetery south of town, we could see some rotation, although not as great as it had been earlier in the day. As the rain began to fall, we went east out of town on IA 210.

About two miles west of Slater, we came across a curtain of strong wind and rain. We could see it would only get worse as we drove, so we pulled off and watched the power lines flop in the wind. After the rain lightened up some, we headed east towards Slater. In Slater we again found ourselves caught in a high wind and heavy rain mess, so we pulled off at the Casey’s store. We noticed that Casey’s, along with other stores in the area, had lost their electricity.

As we sat in the lot as Casey’s we came to the conclusion the storm had gone from a severe storm to a heavy rain producer, so we decided to head for Boone. We headed north out of Slater on county road R38, and found a fair size tree branch down blocking two-thirds of the roadway. We were able to get around it, and then battled heavy rain most of the way to Ames.

SPC Convective Outlook showing a portion of Iowa as a high risk for severe storms.

Photos from May 24, 2004 Chase (#6)

Looking west from our position three miles south of Beaver.

Looking southwest from intersection of 310^th Street and US highway 169.