July 4, 2000 Severe Weather
Check out the map of high wind and hail damage that occurred on July 4th, 2000. The damage survey was done on July 5th, 2000.
- Fairpoint, SD
- 3 miles West of Stoneville, SD
- Stoneville, SD
- 2 miles West of Stoneville, SD
- 2.5 miles South of Stoneville, SD
Damage Survey from the July 4th, 2000 Supercell
Fairpoint, SD
This remote intersection of CR 27 and CR 26 showed some evidence of the severe winds. Most prominent was the grain bin in the picture on the left which was wrapped around a telephone pole. It was clear from this damage that the severe winds were blowing from the northwest - consistent with other minor damage in the immediate area.
Damage Survey from the July 4th, 2000 Supercell
3 miles West of Stoneville, SD
When I visited this ranch house, the owners and neighbors were outside picking up the pieces. They were gone during the storm, but returned two hours later to find their garage blown down, all the windows broken on the west and north sides of the house, and 1-1.5" hail still on the ground. As you can tell from this image, the garage was virtually destroyed from the storm. This picture is looking toward the north. The primary residence can barely be seen behind the garage...a picture of the west side of the residence is below. While it is difficult to estimate the wind needed to do damage of this magnitude, 80 to 110 mph is probably a good first guess.
This is an image looking at the west side of the residence. The siding was beaten rather badly from the wind-driven hail, with all of the windows on this side of the house broken. The air conditioner at the bottom of the image was also moved off it's foundation. The damage exhibited here is consistent with quarter to golfball-sized hail driven by 60 to 90 mph winds. Given the damage to the garage (above), gusts above this range likely occurred.
Damage Survey from the July 4th, 2000 Supercell
Stoneville, SD
Very interesting wind damage noted in this area. This image is looking toward the northwest just south of the Stoneville intersection. If you look closely, you'll notice that the hay bales visible in the picture are not supposed to be in this field. The darker green color of the field closest to where I was standing had not been cut yet (therefore, the hay bales likely rolled in from another field). Notice how most of the bales in the picture are oriented normal to the camera viewing angle - they are positioned as they would be after being rolled by a strong northwest wind.
Damage Survey from the July 4th, 2000 Supercell
2 miles West of Stoneville, SD
After some searching, I found the ranch house which had reported measuring a wind gust of 137 mph with the passage of this storm. The photo to the left shows the instrumentation located on the peak of the roof. There was also a rain gauge up there...but it blew away. About a quarter of this roof was peeled off (out the the picture to the right), and other buildings in the immediate area did exhibit some wind damage. Hail in this area was severe (up to 1.5"), but not as large as areas to the south. Just to the north of this location was a sunflower field which was shredded beyond recognition.
South of CR 26 from the ranch above (about 1.5 miles west of Stoneville), there were more hay bales which exhibited the effects of severe winds. A close look at this image (looking south) shows 8 bales; four oriented generally along the line of sight, and four (on the left) re-oriented to the left. Irregularities in the orientation of hay bales can often give evidence of severe winds; though you must be careful of your interpretation. Indeed, in this case, these four bales were blown by the strong northwest downburst winds (which would have come from the front-right of the image), rolling these four bales some distance.
A closer examination of these bales shows evidence of the rolling. Note on the right side of the image the tracks of the bales left as they were blown across this field to the left.
Damage Survey from the July 4th, 2000 Supercell
2.5 miles South of Stoneville, SD
Along CR 27 about 2.5 miles south of Stoneville the trees exhibited considerable damage from the wind. Several of the trees were snapped off near the base, with most losing some large branches. Six utility poles were snapped off at this location also. There was little evidence of large hail, as few leaves were shredded or lying around on the road. This image is along CR 27, looking south.
