May 31st, 2008 Chase – MN/Twin Cities Surrounding

A diagonal band of slight risk was painted diagonally through Minnesota, 2% tornado but, mostly hail and wind. The business end of the storm was expected to form in the North-land and move into the metro SE @ 30ish? In the interim I went down to Owatonna, and Waseka to see if I could find some hail or some suitable structure to photograph while waiting for the big storms. I ran through some accumulated hail some time after it fell as well as a couple of mildly flooded roads. I also ran into some horses that were a bit shell shocked, high winds had blown the leaves onto the horses, hopefully the trees provided a bit of shelter from the hail.

I had pre-prepared steaks for the grill to dinner as I positioned for the main show I called to see if I could alter those plans, I guess were having steak for lunch on Sunday..

Here is the supercell from 60 miles away that ripped it’s way thru the metro and caused a couple of tornado warnings to be issued for the NW Metro(and hail damage). I saw a few chasers expertly stick with this cell from the far Northwood’s wince it came, like brown on brown rice.

I found a good spot to hold up in, unfortunately their was a civil defense siren about 100 feet behind the parking structure directly at my level on the top of the parking structure. I have video, but, I was unable to hear for about a half hour.

I took cover at the ground fully enclosed floor when the hail came, good sized stuff, and watched the traffic, it caused a horrible accident on 169, I did not see it but, did see a fair amount of police, fire, and ambulances to drive by with their sirens causing additional pain to my hearing.

I took 20+ minutes of video but, my laptop with the firewire port is still in for repairs from it’s fatefull drop on 5/22.

no comments yet.