David Drufke, Minneapolis photographer, storm chasing, sports, outdoor

Chase Team: David Drufke, Kristen Drufke
Target: Atlantic, Iowa
First Intercept: Underwood, Iowa

It was a very cool storm, but probably not worth a 700 mile drive. We arrived a little late to the party, as the storm had already produced in Nebraska, and was now a rain-wrapped HP mess on the north end of a developing line. It was impressive on radar, as it appeared to have powerful, but wide rotation, and resembled a coma shaped hurricane with an eye. It was too dangerous to get into to verify, but I’d be surprised if there wasn’t a tornado in the core of that storm. It had very powerful inflow at all times, on both the north, south, and east side of the storm. That’s something I hadn’t really experienced before. Usually that super strong inflow is replaced by RFD at some point, but this storm had powerful winds feeding into it from every side of the storm that we were on.

Technical issues made this a challenge, as our bluetooth GPS seems to no longer like our computer. Data and roads were surprisingly good and kept us from getting munched by this storm during the extra time it took to figure out navigation, but if we used spotter network, I’m sure quite a few people would have been nervous given our positions a few times. These pictures are from our initial intercept from the top of a large hill east of Underwood, Iowa.

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