June 7th, 2008 Chase - Northern Iowa

I headed to Iowa Saturday morning, not too early. I stopped at the tourist barn just over the border of Minnesota and picked up a couple complementary maps and other touristy attraction type material. Then took a right a little ways into IA towards Algona. I passed several decent looking baby cells some that grew to monsters, some that just kind of petered out or were absorbed by larger cells. I was about to keep going but, a passing cell looked interesting so I followed it for 10 to 15 minutes, then turned around. Once I received my NEXRAD updates the thing had surged to epic proportions and I turned around again and followed it back towards I-35 but, Northeast. The first tornado report came soon after, I crossed a nice debris path near Thomson (perhaps before, need to check my GPS logs of where it was that I pulled over, it was right on a tornado report so I did not report the ‘wind damage’ again(I did not witness the tornado I would have had to report wind damage, I did not want to trivialize the tornado report that had already gone out). But, basically take a farm field and scatter sheet metal, insulation and a bunch of other junk all over the place and snap some power line pole’s and that’s about what I saw. I kept after it, I was losing it as it was going NE at 45 to 55mph, where I could only go North or East at 55 but, surprisingly I was able to not lose too much ground very fast. I was positioning myself to drop back for the next cell right behind it which was also tornado warned when I lost data and somehow got sandwiched between the cells so I ended up in Freeborn County on I-35 on the Minnesota side and had to wait a few minutes before I crossed back between the next set of cells. I headed down to Mason City where I stopped just East of the airport and watched a large meso for quite some time that was warned along with the cell right behind it, then watched as a plane landed, he never had a problem. The Meso was directly North, a bit overheadish. The airport was to the West, this is looking SW on approach.

Storms were moving more East now, and I was just South of the line making it much easier. I ran into one of the DOW’s, the TIV, and some pimped out armoured hummer as if it was patroling for roadside bombs. On each of the four times I left the state to chase this year, I ran into the DOWS and TIV (2 days KS, 1 day NE, 1 day IA). I am not sure if this is a good thing or a bad omen until I see the series this fall.

I gave up around 7pm wanting to get home at a decent time, and I wanted to cross thru the line of severe storms before twilight (it was already pretty dark at the time 2 hours before sunset due to the cloud cover).

It will be a while before I review the video and catch up on the 5 or so missing chases, just trying to keep up at this point. I did however get my laptop back fully repaired and functional (need to find the firewire cable though!!).

I added a couple quick videos of the highlights, if you have difficulties with Vimeo, try You Tube.

EDIT: The second armored vehicle is the TIV2, I had not seen it with the rest of the group previously. It weighs 16,500lbs and is 4 wheel drive with an ATS Super Diesel retrofit.  It is still in testing phase and was undergoing some changes/fixes when I passed by the DOW/TIV caravans on the May 22-24th in various states (KS/KS/NE).

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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.

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May 25, 2008 Chase - Twin Cities Metro, Minnesota

Work in progress.  Having left KS, chasing all day in NE then driving home the prior day, I intercepted this monster up by Albertville, huge monster, putting down some huge hail.  It produced it’s first tornado around Coon Rapids while I was trying to keep up with the system on 610 a little bit to far South (or possibly fortunately a bit too far South you could also say), finally giving up just SW of Hugo.  I was on Country Rd J at that point and my Eastward route was blocked by a lake on the other side of I-35E and given the second cell right behind it and slightly to the South I decided to head South on I-35E to get out of it’s way before I-35E seized up (as they do with any decent storm).  Had I gone North on I-35E I most likely would have spotted the Hugo tornado.  The tornado ended up causing one fatality, and 9 injuries, I personally witnessed no reportable conditions.  Around the same time from out of nowhere a large F5 touched down in Parkersburg, IA producing something like 11 fatalities, and 90 injuries.  I need to look back on that date, and check any case studies that have popped up since then, I had just returned from 3 days in KS/NE but, I never saw that one coming that morning either that or I was just so focused on the Twin Cities for the couple days leading up to the event.  In any event I would have still stayed to ’spot’ for the homeland if I had futurevision.

**Will add stills, video, additional details sometime this winter**

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May 22nd - May 25th Kansas/Nebraska/Minnesota

I went chasing in Hays, KS on May 22nd and 23rd, Nebraska on the 24th, and did spotting locally on the 25th. I am going to try and get the 25th’s report up first but, have quite a bit of catch-up to do. I am having a bit of a challenge with my laptop, I dropped it on the early afternoon of the 22nd from about 2-3 feet which crushed the AC adaptor, I quickly ran to Radio Shack for a replacement (the adaptor jack was totalled) which works but, now I need to send it in for Jack Repair. I have copied all the stills and about 4 of 6 hours of video to a portable hard drive but, I do most of my editing on my laptop.

Put a video up from the 22nd but, you will need a fast computer to view it.  If your computer has difficulties try this low res compressed version.

TODO: 5/22 KS, 5/23 KS, 5/24 NE, 5/25 MN , 5/30 MN

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May 24, 2008 Chase - Nebraska

Work in progress…  I chased a couple supercells thru the heart of Nebraska, several people from Minnesota came down, along with most everyone from Kansas from the previous day came up (versus going to OK).  The tornado’s the produced were further North on the border and in ND/SD as well as/OK.  I leapfrogged the DOW/TIV’s several times.  The next day was looking pretty good for the Twin Cities, so I drove home from Nebraska.  Will eventually post a full account, photos, and video.

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