April 29th, 2010 First Chase/Equipment Check

I really was not expecting a line of storms to fire South the metro.  The NWS radio went off I fired up GR3 and saw a line of cells shooting up to 35k feet heading NE at 40 into Dakota County.  I grabbed some bags and jumped into the car.   I took my netbook, I thought I had loaded all the drivers and software but, I was wrong.  Had no data, no maps, no GPS(nothing worked, my regular laptop is retired to no more traveling it’s taken one too many drops/etc).  Anyhow I jumped onto I35 and took Cty 42 East to Hastings, into Prescott(I know Wisconsin) then US 10 intercepting the lead cell following into Ellsworth.  I watched the second cell pass some nice Tcu a little bit of CTC lightning and lots of rain.  I believe I saw Mr. Stanga walking out of Subway in Ellsworth.  The sirens were going off in the Prescott area although I am not sure why.   I had NWS radio and I believe the warnings expired on them around that time.

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August 3, 2008 Chase MN

The storm prediction center had us under a 5% Tornado Risk (and still does at the time of this writing). I headed to SW MN eventually winding up in Mountain Lake, MN just East of Windom, just North of the warm front. The area had impressive dew points in the high 70’s between Windom and St. James along with an unbreakable cap. I spent the time with Tim Purington, and Andy Gabrielson while MD 2013 came and went without any warnings being issued. I had been staring at something about a telephone museum, so just before leaving I went over and checked it out. It’s Heritage Village at Mountain Lake. A fitting bust photo for the day. It looked like a cool little place but, they were closed at the time so I just shot a few quick photos out the drivers side window with the SD1000 not wanting to pull out the SLR. I had a nice sunset shot lined up in back of an old grain elevator/co-op but, the sun set into some clouds just before I got into position.

On the way out of the parking lot to ‘Heritage Village’ I ran into John Wetter, then later Andrew Revering on they way out of ‘Heritage Village’. I went East to St. James stopping for gas and a bottle of water. Tim and Andy G were at the Citgo(?) and they noticed initiation in Renville County(big towers, granted they had difficulties getting going at first). They shot North, I headed up 169 eventually heading North through Nicollet to Norwood then home. During this time MD 2019 was issued resulting in Tornado Watch #804 effective until 6am (the night is not over but, I am going to bed). Once I got to Norwood it was pretty dark I pulled through the DQ for two chili dog’s watching some of the lightning off in the distance, I went home. I left home around 4pm returning at 10:30, total distance was 433km.

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July 31st, 2008 Chase MN/IA

Round 1 – AM MN Bow Echo/Derecho

The day started a little after 4am when the Storm Prediction Center issued a severe thunderstorm watch for the ongoing bow echo/derecho. I hit the snooze button, the fired up Nexrad, went back to sleep. The first severe warning that registered was for a one county West a little after 6am. I fired up Nexrad and watched, got up, packed for work, watched some more, a tornado warning for a book end vortex on the northern extent of the bow structure was issued around 7:30 (will look up exact times later), followed by the Southern extent maybe an hour later. I listened to the active Skywarn net’s on the way to work. A roll cloud presented itself that spanned the horizon, quite nice, I hit a 7 story parking structure, when I went in on the bottom it was perfectly rounded shaped, by the time I reached the top overlooking Normandale Lake it had stopped rolling and was ragged and shelfy disappearing into the horizon. Anyhow the bow echo graduated to a derecho and petered out just inside of Indiana.

Round 2 – PM Iowa

I left work at 4:30 it’s a bit difficult to escape the confines of the city any later stopping at home for 10 minutes, I headed for Iowa via Albert Lea to Austin (‘SPAM Town USA’ not the e-mail kind, home of the Spam Museum long story but, over the weekend a few of us had a Spam craving, someone had mentioned it just in the last month or this past weekend), to the Waverly, IA area and points West. Some nice towering cumulus in the distance at times but, they had difficulties getting going. MD #1982 was issued just as I was approaching the now stationary boundary, no watch was ever issued. Met up with Rich Gudmunsen, Randy Nelson, and Dean Barron via Radio then stalked and met Tim Purington for the first time in person and Andy Gabrilson who I might have met before. Anyways some regular cycling of the same few systems occurred I was able to get a look at the 3 that were trying but, just a bit too capped. Between cells I took a bunch of photos of Alison, IA my daughters name (but, they spelled it wrong with 2 L’s, no matter, Photoshop, I can fix it). I took photos of the Alison welcome sign, Alison water tower, Alison post office, Alison hardware store, etc. I have not had the opportunity to go through photos video yet except for the sunset!

Last chase of July 2008. On a slightly downer note I passed by the Owatonna airport where a private jet had crashed shortly after the morning’s storm had gone thru. 8 people lost their lives. While I did’nt stop quite a few news crews and vehicles were parked at the airport on the way down, on the way back I could have sworn thier was stadium lighting around a section of corn field on the other side of I-35 (maybe it was a stadium?).

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July 29th, 2008 Chase Western WI

Wisconsin is off limits most of the year due to the trees. On my way home from work the towering Cu was irresistible along with the slow moving system. At the time they were isolated cells moving around 15 kts well over an hour away some towers peaking into the 47.5Kft range, the were moving East, and I kind of just wanted to get a couple hours closer. I also figured a great day to introduce the kids to chasing. We left at 6:30 taking our time eating dinner. We headed East on I-94 making it as far as Wood County, several crisp isolated updrafts still existed as we first left Minnesota but, they soon collapsed, as a line developed SW towards La Crosse with some infrequent cycling in intensity and updrafts along the line, along with further collapses. We made it as far as Osseo where I stepped out and took a few shots of what was remaining around sunset with much of the remnants illuminated in a reddish/pink sunset. We then grabbed some gas and figured I would bribe the kids with some sit down food, I have the choice between a dinner (steak whatever, we had already had dinner) or DQ and they went for the DQ option, then briefly watched the lightning in the distance after sunset. We returned around 11pm having driven around 237 miles round trip.

Interestingly my daughters first comment as we made it into Wisconsin was ‘their sure are allot of trees, It makes it difficult to see the clouds’.

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July 19th, 2008 Chase – Twin Cities

I hate chasing in the cities, I just try not to do it other than spotting. I was looking at SW MN mostly just procrastinating getting out of the house, I left my laptop for 20 minutes and when I came back I was told thier is a tornado warning in effect for Sherburne County. I raced Northward to Forest Lake arriving 20 minutes late (I had plenty of time but, all the roads were closed I-35W, Ceder, I-35E), I literally had to drive thru downtown St. Paul for 20 minutes. Anyway, I then attacked a new cell that formed in the South Metro, Tony advised me ‘The Chase is Over’ he was correct of course but, I figured I would press on. I ran into and chatted with Rich Gudmunson, and Randy Nelson (Randy, I believe who lives in Big Lake, and caught a nice wall cloud this day in addition to the tornado he bagged earlier in Maple Grove? earlier this year).

PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT...SUMMARY
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TWIN CITIES/CHANHASSEN MN
959 PM CDT SAT JUL 19 2008

..TIME...   ...EVENT...      ...CITY LOCATION...     ...LAT.LON...
..DATE...   ....MAG....      ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE....
            ..REMARKS..

0205 PM     TORNADO          3 E BECKER              45.37N 93.82W
07/19/2008                   SHERBURNE          MN   TRAINED SPOTTER

            TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN NEAR A BARN ALONG 165TH AVE NW AND
            DOWNED SEVERAL 2 TO 3 FT OAK TREES. TIME WAS ESTIMATED.

0225 PM     TORNADO          BIG LAKE                45.34N 93.75W
07/19/2008                   SHERBURNE          MN   TRAINED SPOTTER

            TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN BRIEFLY IN VICINITY OF BIG LAKE.
            REPORTED BY OFF DUTY GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL.

0240 PM     FUNNEL CLOUD     2 S ST FRANCIS          45.41N 93.31W
07/19/2008                   ANOKA              MN   AMATEUR RADIO

            SPOTTED NEAR NOWTHEN AND TROUT BROOK ROAD IN BURNS
            TOWNSHIP.

Remnants of the last cell

Bust Photo

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