08/13/10 Reports: MN

[L.B. LaForce]

Haha, yessir, that storm did explode pretty fast. I observed the rapidly rotating wall cloud near Hayfield, MN and watched the tornado from birth to death-about 30 mins. When the tornado started to occlude, it was a beautiful white tube that was sunlit, and like Chad said, blue skies all around.

 

[Dean Baron]

I also got a view of the tornado. I really regret my little 10 mile just west from Ellendale. Had I not done that I would have been about 10 miles west of this storm when it exploded. Hindsight is 20/20. Got a great view of the tornado from 8-9 miles west of it. At first I couldn't believe what I was seeing because it was so far on the back side of the base it almost looked detached, but it didnt take me long to figure out it was the real deal. Got to watch it for about 5-7 minutes and saw a pretty cool rope out. All in all a cool chase, just wish I hadn't gone west like I did literally right before this thing exploded. Video is uploading to youtube, will post in reports thread when it's done. No pics from the day. The storm was neverr really photogenic after this tor.

 

[Dean Baron]

8/13/2010 Reports: MN

Headed south around 11:00 this morning thinking somwhere along the I35 corridor from Owatonna to Albert Lea. Decided to head southeast out of Owatonna towards Blooming Prairie and ended up in Ellendale before the storm went up. Had a really nice spot under the canopy at an abandoned gas station with a great view looking east but the crap storm that went up earlier in the day to my east had a real hard time keeping it's crisp towers. After a while of not seeing anything looking like it was going to do anything in that area I decided to head west a little bit and try and catch an OFB off the line that had formed to my northwest. The Hayfield storm must've gone up literally right after I left Ellendale. Backtracked the 12 or so miles back east and caught a view of the tornado for about 5-7 minutes before it completely dissipated. I was more like 8 miles from it as opposed to the 15 I guesstimated in the video. Very cool tornado with a cool rope out (which i didnt get on camera). Just wish I had stayed put in Ellendale!! I unfortunately did see some damage in Hayfield, but from I saw it appeared to be mostly sheet metal getting ripped off and tossed across the street. No pics, only video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPztAnDoVBg

 

[Jeremy Den Hartog]

We ended up starting out the day on I-90 between Austin and Rochester. There was a storm that started to develop right along the interstate that we decided to follow as doing so would allow us to parallel the southern edge of the storm. It briefly looked like it was going to get its act together but quickly died just southwest of Rochester. This was a bit of a bummer of course but as it turns out it was almost like mother nature had lured us in for the show as it luckily put us in the perfect spot to observe the monster that was about to be born (well, almost perfect).

We made at least one costly mistake. We were planning to take I-90 to highway 63 taking us toward Rochester and then west on county road 30. Unfortunately we missed the turn and just decided to go up to highway 14 to turn west thinking we had time for the storm got its act together. As it turns out we didn't and once we got to 14 the storm had become a monster and was producing a tornado. To make things worse heading west on 14 took us directly into the path of the storm (where we wouldn't see the tornado due to the rain). I decided to take a road that took us back south some trying to get on the south side of the storm. I didn't realize at the time that this road would take us through a valley with lots of hills and trees - very poor chase terrain. We did see occasional glimpses of the tornado posted above but for the most part we ended up missing out on the best tornado of the day. Such is chasing though as one decision can make or break you .

We ended up seeing a fair amount of action though. Unfortunately my video camera was acting up so I have zero video of the day (which would have been nice as with some of the tornadoes the contrast is poor and the tornado is hard to make out and of course you can't see the motion in a picture like you would in a video). All said, I believe we saw 9 weak tornadoes (though I admit most of them were so short lived its hard to say if they were in contact with the ground which of course mean its not a tornado and is instead a funnel). In any case, it was a fun and somewhat unexpected day.

Anyhow, here are a few of the images from the day. Please note, most of these images are going to be a 'Where's Waldo' with trying to find the tornado. I messed with the contrast on at least one of the images trying to make it apparent. I found photographing the tornadoes this day to be VERY difficult with the poor contrast and very short life span of most of the ropes. Also, while I had good luck with being in the right area for the storms, I had bad luck with my cameras. Not only was my video camera not working I noticed after I got home their must have been some moisture on my camera lens (probably from going from the air conditioned vehicle to the hot muggy air outside but not sure)...so the images may look a little 'odd' (which is a bummer and is why I didn't include more images).

 

[Chad Cowan]

Saw the whole life cycle of the tornado near Rochester yesterday, here are some video caps:

 

[Dean Baron]

Here's some video grabs. I really thought this thing was gonna cycle and we were gonna have multiple tornadoes with this thing as there was a string of very crisp towers feeding in to the storm. Just glad this didnt happen any farther east or else we would've been in bluff country.

 

[L.B. LaForce]

Here we go, got some video up from this storm. I have more video, but I'm saving that for my 2010 DVD. Anyways, this storm happened so fast, and when i got on it, the wall cloud was already spinning like a top, so I didn't have time to roll down the windows, shut off the A/C, to let the dewpoints equalize. Therefore, some of the shots may appear fogged Some shots are also not tripoded because i was having some serious hardware/technical issues-perfect timing right?

 

[Chad Cowan]

My video is now online here, I had to do the editing on my laptop which has a crappy screen so some of the colors towards the end are pleh:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv-oCzhGMuo