2011-04-10 Reports: MN/WI/IA/IL/MO/KS/OK/TX

[Bob Conzemius]

Wound up staying with the storms until about New Auburn, WI. As one of the cells passed over me there, it became tornado-warned, and I saw some low-hanging appendage stuff, but no significant rotation with it, and I managed to get some hail as well. I did not stick with things as well as a few people who managed to keep the passing train strategy going most of the way across Wisconsin. I quit rather early.

Other pictures at: http://tornadobob.com/2011/0410/20110410.html

-Bob

 

[Rob H]

James Seitz, Jon Kraft, and I started the day near Rochester, MN and waited for initiation which was earlier than anticipated. We targeted the cell that went through La Crosse and into Sparta, WI and thereabouts. The storm was outflow dominant while we were able to stay in front of it, and the storm speed (60mph+), construction, the river, and hills/trees made this a very difficult chase.

In the second image there is a tendril on the leading edge of the gust front that was called in by the public as a funnel. I'm almost embarrassed to say we chased yesterday on a PDS bust, but we had a good time still. Getting the timing/positioning right for this system on the pre-frontal wind shift was no easy task with the available viewing locations and the storm speeds, so we were very happy with our execution.

edit: Apparently our storm produced an EF-2 tornado 20 miles after we had to give up on it, due to the construction on 94. Curse you, Wisconsin!

 

[Bryan_Knitter]

Attempted to chase yesterday. Wasn't very successful though. I did manage to get a pic of a supercell as it was over Adams Co. WI. Unfortunately this is the best view I could get of it.


Adams Co supercell by bryank9302, on Flickr

 

[Colt R Forney]

Kevin Rolfs, Scott Peake and I had yet another amazing day of chasing! Witnessed 2 tornadoes by Friendship, WI. The first being a nice multi-vortex that transitioned into a large rain-wrapped cone. This is the tornado in the video posted below. The second was rain-wrapped and hard to see from its formation. Enjoy!


Watch video >

 

[Christopher E. Kincaid]

A very frustrating chase to say the least. The construction on I-94 was a killer. Add the construction to the trees, hills and poor road network and you have the makings of a bust. Watching that storm brew on my GR3 screen while I was stuck in the construction zone traffic was painful, realizing it was headed right for me at ~50 kts and I couldn't move was scary!

In all due respect to our WI members, I have to say that was my first and my last WI chase. It's beautiful up there, certainly more beautiful than Central IL where I am from. Well until there is something interesting in the sky then our flatness has their hills and trees beat all to hell!

Here is a picture of the "wall cloud" on that tor warned storm near I-94 that everyone is talking about. Scud or wall cloud? (I have a few more pics of this storm if anyone is interested.) No rotation... some rising motion.

IMG_2209 by toodamnice, on Flickr

I was treated to some beautiful convection on the way home. I loved it until I had to drive through it!! It was svr warned and followed the storm pictured above. It road the CF I believe.

IMG_2239 by toodamnice, on Flickr


IMG_2246 by toodamnice, on Flickr

 

[Bob Hartig]

I chased the southernmost cluster of tornadic storms with Mike Kovalchik and Bill and Tom Oosterbaan. We positioned in southeast Minnesota and waited as our initial storm blew up in northeast Iowa and made a beeline straight at us. The storm split as it moved into MN, and we tracked with the southernmost cell, crossing the river into Wisconsin at La Crosse. That cell became the right-turner that produced tornado damage in Necedah and Arkdale, but we missed the actual tornado. We may have seen a couple tubes, but distance, terrain, and a bit of haze made it impossible to say with any certainty. Much of Wisconsin is just a bear for chasing. I've chased there before, and frankly, this time was better than in the past.

We always seemed to be just enough out of position to miss the action. I'm not sure whether to attribute that to bad calls on our part or just to Wisconsin, including that criminally stupid road closure on I-90. Personally, I found the storm structure a bit confusing. Maybe I should be used to chasing with southwest surface winds, but I found it a bit counterintuitive with the storms actually moving east-northeast. There were some unmistakable rotating wall clouds, but a lot of what I saw looked pretty linear. Still, down came the tornadoes. I got video of damage in Necedah and Arkdale. Congratulations to those of you who got actual tornado footage. That took some doing in Wisconsin, particularly, IMO, with these storms.

 

[Joe Pudlik]

Initially the group I chased with ended up on one of the northern supercell which ended up dropping two tornadoes in the Augusta, WI area. We then dropped southeast to make a play on the tornadic supercell approaching the Appleton area. This storm had nice structure. Another tornadic supercell quickly approaching from our southwest forced us southward, thus we missed the tornado just east of Appleton. Eventually construction screwed us over as another tornadic supercell approached Oshkosh, and we called it a night. I know several areas of construction made it difficult for others too. We were on the move most of the time, so I didn't get too many pictures or video, but here are a few...

 

[Bill Doms]

Chase account from Eau Claire county Wisconsin is done where the cell merger (more like collision) spawned a couple of atypical EF1's.

 

[Zack Hargrove]

A couple of time lapses of beautiful Wisconsin Supercells that we caught on 4/10/2011:

Watch video >

Watch video >