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There is nothing like seeing the structure of a powerful supercell laid bare with a powerful tornado swirling underneath. The Alpena/Wessington Springs EF4 tornado just hit different. The murky hazy skies, the slow track of the storm, even the weight of the moisture in the air. Right before this photo I remember watching a second satellite tornado coming down as I was filming from the sunroof and then to be presented with this structure + tornado combo right after was just unreal!

   -  , : I had just gotten back from a life-changing six-month Christian internship in TX. Arriving back in Minnesota, I was having a difficult time adjusting back to normal everyday life at home. But my second week back the northern plains became extremely alive and active, producing some of the most memorable career chases for many storm chasers with June 18th being one of them.

This day in general started out like any other chase day. Nothing really stuck out to me as extraordinary with the setup. In fact, I was just happy to be out chasing. For this chase, I had my friend Steven W and a good buddy of mine Lane B along.

After waking up and looking over a few things I had Mitchell, SD as my main target area. As we drove out I noted a line of storms that looked messy and junky slowly making their way over to the prime target area for later that afternoon. As we moved in on our target we decided to head south to the Nebraska/South Dakota border to check out an isolated storm that was developing in a better environment. As we inched closer to this storm a report came out that a possible tornado was occurring on the messy storms to our NW. We were only 10 miles out from the more isolated storm to our south so we decided to go for that one and see what it looked like. This was an unfortunate error and 5 miles in we noted the updraft dying and evaporating right in front of us! 

With that, we quickly turned around and blasted to the north to try and make it to the now tornado-warned storm that was heading towards Wessington Springs, SD. Unfortunately, we were an hour out of position and as we kept getting closer we kept hearing more reports of tornadoes. In chasing there is nothing worse than picking the wrong storm and trying to play catch up while you hear reports of tornadoes. 

Finally, we got on the storm as it was wrapping up again. It had already produced 5 to 6 tornadoes at this point and we knew we would be lucky if it dropped another one. As it was getting its act together the storm started throwing down powerful positive bolts of lightning, some of which hit quite close to us! We started inching closer to the now rotating wall cloud and then the tornado dropped! We were chasing in my 2002 Toyota Camry at the time and that thing had a sunroof which for this chase I took full advantage of by standing out and filming as Steven was driving us closer to the tornado. It was a crazy rush, even more crazy was that while this was happening the storm put down a beautiful satellite tornado next to the main one! I was just in complete amazement of what I was witnessing. This tornado ended up lasting for 40+ minutes and produced some of the most amazing tornado + mesocyclone structures I've ever seen!

On the way home, we couldnt stop talking about the different moments of the chase. What a crazy experience it was for us! This day really helped me to get re-established being at home again. Storm chasing isnt just a fun hobby for me, but can actually be a form of therapy.

  : The Wessington Springs/Alpena tornado was a strong EF4 tornado with winds up to 170 mph and was on the ground for 40+ minutes! The tornado/storm moved at a very slow 10 ish mph allowing a lot of chasers to get up close and personal with this tornado. Thankfully no injuries were reported, but unfortunately, a family dog did end up perishing.

Damage Survey from the National Weather Service here in the US about the tornado. https://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/outlook/archive/2014/day1otlk_20140618_1300.html

The outlook map from this day: https://www.weather.gov/fsd/20140618-tornado-alpena

Artist: Tanner Charles Schaaf

Date Taken: June 18th, 2014

Location: Alpena, South Dakota, USA

Time Traveled To Where Photo Was Taken (Only One Way): 6 hours and 40 minutes

Camera Details: 
-  Camera: Canon EOS REBEL T4i
-  Lens: Canon EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6
-  18mm, f/4, 1/50, ISO 100
