WKU Storm Chase Update

Good morning, yesterday was kind of a tricky chase day as severe storms were forecast in northern Montana. Northern Montana is a beautiful part of the country but a lack of roads and hilly terrain can make it a bit difficult to chase storms. We woke up in Buffalo, Wyoming and headed north to Glasgow, Montana where we waited for storms to fire.

Around dinnertime, storms to our west fired and began to move northeast to the Canada border. These storms congealed into a small linear feature and we raced east to Malta, Montana to intercept them. We were on the southern edge of the line and got a great view of the storms right around sunset.

As the line approached we headed east to avoid getting hit by the storms. We quickly lost daylight and a few miles east of Malta we started noticing what looked like a tornado to our north illuminated by lightning. Due to the nocturnal timing, it is hard to confirm if this was a tornado or not, but we will have to review some of our best photos of the feature illuminated by lightning to determine what it is. Here is a picture of a picture taken with one of our better cameras (the actual picture can’t be uploaded until we get home).

Today, we are starting out in Miles City, Montana and hope to head east to catch a few storms along a cold front although not much severe weather is anticipated. Keep up with us on Twitter by following @wkustormchase.