Alert archive / South Dakota / Tornado Warnings in 1997

Tornado Warning 10, NWS Rapid City, SD

August 13, 1997Mellette County, South Dakota

NWS Rapid City, SD issued this tornado warning at Aug 13, 1997, 4:58 PM CDT for Mellette County, South Dakota. It was in force for 32 min. No storm report in the archive falls inside the area while it was in force.

The area

The counties it named.

The facts

Issued
Aug 13, 1997, 4:58 PM CDT (21:58 UTC)
Expired
Aug 13, 1997, 5:30 PM CDT
In force
32 min
Issued by
NWS Rapid City, SD
Area
Whole counties

County Mellette County, SD

The radar

The Rapid City radar (KUDX), 177 km from the middle of the area, began a volume at 21:58 UTC, the scan nearest the moment this went out.

Open the radar archive at this moment

The archived warnings, watches and discussions in force at that minute are drawn over the scan, this one among them.

The watch it was issued in

The SPC watch in force over the same counties when this warning went out.

IssuedProductOfficeLasted
Aug 13, 4:50 PM CDTSevere Thunderstorm WatchSPC5 hr

The nearest sounding before it

Rapid City, SD (KUNR), launched 12:00Z, 10.0 hours before the alert went out and 179 km from the middle of its area. This is the routine balloon launch nearest before it, the air the forecaster had in hand, not a measurement taken for the alert.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Rapid City, SD at 12:00Z on 1997-08-13Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel. CAPE 37 joules per kilogram.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed.
HodographHodograph, Rapid City, SD at 12:00Z on 1997-08-13The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 178 square meters per square second.19395878Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km.
Mixed-layer CAPE
37 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-147 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1364 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
50 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
178 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
241 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The text

The text of this product is not in the archive. The NWS text archive before 2002 is incomplete.

What forecasters said that day

The local office's own words before this tornado warning went out, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.

NWS Rapid City, SD wrote its last area forecast discussion before this tornado warning went out at Aug 13, 10:25 AM CDT, 6 hours 33 minutes earlier.

Area forecast discussion, Aug 13, 10:25 AM CDT, 6 hours 33 minutes before
AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION FOR WESTERN SD AND NORTHEASTERN WY
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE RAPID CITY SD
925 AM MDT WED AUG 13 1997

I UPDATED NORTHWEST SOUTH DAKOTA FOR MOSTLY CLOUDY INSTEAD OF
INCREASING CLOUDS. WATER VAPOR AND VISIBLE IMAGERY INDICATING DRY
PUNCH MOVING IN FROM WYOMING...SO UPDATED SOUTHWEST SOUTH DAKOTA
FOR PARTLY CLOUDY SKIES AND DROPPED PRECIPITATION CHANCES. NUMEROUS
LITTLE WAVES SHOWING UP IN WATER VAPOR SO WITH HEATING AND
INCREASING INSTABILITY... AFTERNOON CONVECTION A GOOD POSSIBILITY
OVER THE BLACK HILLS AND SOUTHWEST. TEMPERATURES SEEM ON TRACK.

.UNR...NONE.

FRANZEN

In the hours before

Local storm report, Aug 13, 3:25 PM CDT, 1 hour 33 minutes before
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Local storm report, Aug 13, 3:28 PM CDT, 1 hour 30 minutes before
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<head>
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  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
  <title>Service Notice</title>
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="index.css">
</head>
<body>
  <main class="wrap">
    <section class="card" role="status" aria-live="polite">
      <div class="status" id="status">Temporary Notice</div>
      <h1 id="headline">This service is currently unavailable.</h1>
      <p id="message1">
        The site you requested is temporarily down for maintenance or an unexpected outage.
      </p>
      <p id="message2">
        Please try again in a few minutes.
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        If you are an administrator, restore upstream service and remove the redirect/fallback rule when normal operations resume.
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The office that day

Everything else NWS Rapid City, SD issued on the same UTC day.

IssuedProductOfficeCountiesLasted
Aug 13, 2:22 PM CDTSevere Thunderstorm WarningUNRPennington63 min
Aug 13, 3:20 PM CDTSevere Thunderstorm WarningUNRPennington60 min
Aug 13, 3:26 PM CDTSevere Thunderstorm WarningUNRZiebach59 min
Aug 13, 4:09 PM CDTSevere Thunderstorm WarningUNRMeade61 min
Aug 13, 4:24 PM CDTSevere Thunderstorm WarningUNRPennington61 min
Aug 13, 4:37 PM CDTSevere Thunderstorm WarningUNRHaakon, Ziebach63 min
Aug 13, 4:41 PM CDTSevere Thunderstorm WarningUNRMellette49 min
Aug 13, 5:11 PM CDTSevere Thunderstorm WarningUNRJackson64 min
Aug 13, 5:25 PM CDTSevere Thunderstorm WarningUNRPennington50 min
Aug 13, 5:31 PM CDTSevere Thunderstorm WarningUNRMellette49 min
Aug 13, 5:38 PM CDTSevere Thunderstorm WarningUNRHaakon47 min
Aug 13, 2:49 PM CDTSevere Thunderstorm WarningUNRCrook61 min

Nearby

Tornado Warnings in South Dakota, 1997Every tornado warning in 1997Tornadoes in 1997

Sources

The product and its follow-ups from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service and Storm Prediction Center text; the sounding from the Mesonet's radiosonde archive; radar from the NEXRAD Level II archive.