5-5-2012 SD/NE/MN Chase

Nick and I left the Twin Cities in the early morning hours on this Saturday for a forcasted chase target near Viborg, South Dakota. The day looked on paper to be a very good tornado day in Southeast South Dakota and northeast Nebraska as a frontal boundary was to lift north into this area along with a weak developing area of low pressure also expected to ride northeast into the region by late in the day.  Supercells would be the mode of the day along with very large hail and tornadoes. 

As we drove west into South Dakota reaching Sioux Falls by 6:00am, We began to notice rapid storm development to the west of Mitchell SD which was only 1 hour to our west. With the days main event not forecast to occur until late in the day, We decided to blast west to play with these early morning storms near Mitchell being driven by strong WAA and a robust LLJ that was nosing into the area at the time. 

As we arrived in Mitchell on I-90 we began to get our first views of the coming storms as well as a quick look at the world famous Corn Palace.

 

As the storms were rapidly approaching Mitchell we were receiving upstream reports of hail up to 2.50”in diameter with the cells showing a solid and large hail core on radar. We quickly found a nice closed station with a over top canopy where we could park the vehicle to minimize damage and it began!

 

The Large hail lasted for about 5 minutes nonstop with sizes ranging from quarter size to Hen Egg size .75” – 2.00” in diameter at our location just south of Mitchell off US I-90. 

 

In some places the hail drifted up to 5 inched deep! There also was widespread vehicle damage with many windows broken in and around our area in Mitchell. 

Once these storms moved off to the northeast toward eastern SD we began to head back south to our original chase target to the southeast near Viborg. As new data came in and the morning storms putting out a robust outflow boundary to the south it became evident that we would need to move further southeast into Northeast Nebraska. 

Well as Mother Nature would have it the storms did not develop as expected as the very warm capped air held off convective development across this area for the day. 

5-2-2012 Southern MN Chase

The evening started out with rapid storm development to the west of Mankato in southern Minnesota with several reports of large hail and strong winds as the storms slowly tracked east toward the I-35 corridor.  Amanda and I had just returned home from work for the day and quickly moved to head down I-35 south to intercept the eastward moving cells near Medford. 

 

As we finally got ahead of the main cell just west of Medford MN it had a very nice inflow feeder band rapidly streaming up into it with a well pronounced Shelf Cloud also evident on the leading edge.

 

The storm rapidly was moving east toward our position but did not display to significant damaging winds on radar. 

 

Here the leading edge of the gust front finally overtook us with measured wind speeds on the now all outflow dominate storm of 42MPH. 

 

The burst of strong gusty winds scared up a flock of songbirds from the nearby tree grove just as other chasers raced by to the east.

This was a fun little mini chase and nice back to back follow up to the previous days highly successful chase with the Brooten tornado in Pope county MN

5-1-2012: Central MN Chase

Nick and I passing time as storms begin to initiate in Pope County, MN near Sedan, MN.

 Tornado warned cell approaching us from the west near Sedan, MN.

Storm getting better organized. Wall cloud beginning to wrap up.

Local volunteer fire spotters watching the storm just to our North.

Wild dust being lifted up underneath the Meso.

More dust crossing the road near Sedan, MN with low visibility.

Tornado which briefly touched down near Sedan - along Pope County 29. This farmer seemed almost oblivious to the storm.

Small tornado on the ground with visible debris swirl at base.

Violent little circulation less than 200 yards from the car. This was a nice little gustnado under the meso just as the tornado was occurring to our northeast. This is NOT a tornado, but may also have been reported as one by locals.

Dust under the meso. A very common theme this day.

Storm now all outflow east of Brooten, MN.

Our good friend from the Fargo, ND - Storm Chaser Eric Whitehill. He also got a tornado this day which was featured on Valley News Live in Fargo.

Below is a map of our chase route that day. It was a fun chase!

4-21-2012: Western MN Funnel Clouds & Tornado

The morning started out by teaching the Skywarn Spotter Training at the WROC in Morris, MN. The training had a very good turnout.

After some morning showers, the sun popped out just enough to spark some instability in the air.

Early afternoon we watched the radar and saw reports of funnel clouds associated with the line of storms that seemed to pop up on the radar. Nick and I quickly got into the car and quickly raced to the west and captured these photos.

EF-0 Tornado 3 miles NW of Chokio, MN
1:40pm CDT

Dime size hail fell after the tornado.

Funnel Cloud 3 Miles NW of Chokio (second one in area)

A Look at the storms after they passed overhead.

Rotating Wall cloud with small needle funnel West of Donnelly, MN

Funnel Cloud near Morris, MN

April 14-15, 2012 Chase

4-14-12

Traveled to Nebraska to get on the High Risk for tornadoes. Cells fired way off to the west and we headed East toward Des Moines, Iowa to spend the night. We had an excellent lightning show near Des Moines of the severe warned cell that was racing north fast.

4-15-12 

Cells rapidly organized in the warm sector and raced North in Watonwan County MN not long before producing brief tornadoes straight north near the boundary up in McLeod County MN. 

Was a fun ending to a great long distance chase across the Plains & Upper Midwest!

 Here is a picture of the cell in Watonwan County and our chase route map of the weekend.