6.23.00 Rapid City, SD

Severe storms developed over northeast WY and moved southeast over Belle Fourche and later passed just east of Rapid City. I drove up to Radar Hill just east of Rapid City to watch as they moved towards me. From Radar Hill, I could see the updraft bases while they were still just southeast of Belle Fourche. The updraft region was linear and showed strong outflow behind/north of it. Although non-tornadic, these storms were impressive to watch. A strong gust front moved right over Ellsworth AFB. The outflow generated ominous fast moving, non-rotating scud clouds in the colder moist outflow as well as a nice leading edge shelf cloud. The storm also produced very impressive lightning bolts that hammered the base.

By the way, today was also the two year anniversary of a tornadic storm that produced three tornadoes just north of Ellsworth AFB.

	View looking northwest. The main portion of the storm was southeast of Belle Fourche and you can see the anvil in the upper right portion of the picture. Another storm was forming over the Black Hills on the left side of the picture.
	Onlooker wondering what I am doing.
	Ominous lowering. However, this interaction of outflow to the left and inflow coming from the right was not rotating.
	The gust front moves over Ellsworth AFB.
	Closer view of the shelf cloud looking north-northeast from Radar Hill.
	Outflow generated scud.
	More scud over Ellsworth AFB.
	Lightning on Ellsworth AFB. There were numerous bolts around and on the base after the gust front passed.
	Another bolt looking north towards Box Elder from Radar Hill.
	Looking east from Radar Hill.
Lightning Strike Video	Click on the link to the left to see a 139 kb avi video of lightning striking Box Elder.