• After witnessing the continued decrease of involvement in the SpotterNetwork staff in serving SN members with troubleshooting issues recently, I have unilaterally decided to terminate the relationship between SpotterNetwork's support and Stormtrack. I have witnessed multiple users unable to receive support weeks after initiating help threads on the forum. I find this lack of response from SpotterNetwork officials disappointing and a failure to hold up their end of the agreement that was made years ago, before I took over management of this site. In my opinion, having Stormtrack users sit and wait for so long to receive help on SpotterNetwork issues on the Stormtrack forums reflects poorly not only on SpotterNetwork, but on Stormtrack and (by association) me as well. Since the issue has not been satisfactorily addressed, I no longer wish for the Stormtrack forum to be associated with SpotterNetwork.

    I apologize to those who continue to have issues with the service and continue to see their issues left unaddressed. Please understand that the connection between ST and SN was put in place long before I had any say over it. But now that I am the "captain of this ship," it is within my right (nay, duty) to make adjustments as I see necessary. Ending this relationship is such an adjustment.

    For those who continue to need help, I recommend navigating a web browswer to SpotterNetwork's About page, and seeking the individuals listed on that page for all further inquiries about SpotterNetwork.

    From this moment forward, the SpotterNetwork sub-forum has been hidden/deleted and there will be no assurance that any SpotterNetwork issues brought up in any of Stormtrack's other sub-forums will be addressed. Do not rely on Stormtrack for help with SpotterNetwork issues.

    Sincerely, Jeff D.

2012-04-15 REPORTS: MN

Joined
May 1, 2004
Messages
3,417
Location
Springfield, IL
Sunday busted spectacularly across the moderate risk region. Brad Goddard, Jennifer Brindley Ubl and I were just too exhausted to commit to the warm front draped across central MN after putting in 3,000 miles on our four day plains trip and having to be back at work on Monday morning. We decided instead to play storms coming off the cold front in south central MN/north central IA. We knew we were giving up any shot at a tornado given that the surface low had elongated and surface winds were badly veered except on the warm front. We had steak dinner in Albert Lea in the afternoon to celebrate our chase from the previous day and then mozied a few miles west on over to a line of cells racing up to us from the southeast. Nothing severe, and they were moving way too fast to pursue, but I shot some timelapse of photogenic, colorful little cells and pretty skies and thought I'd share it here.

Watch video >

The funny thing about Sunday's bust was that it was about as enjoyable as Saturday's big tornado chase. Although there were no tornadoes for us on Sunday, we actually got to stand back, relax, and watch the storms for an extended period of time, instead of racing all over the place in a sleep deprived state like frantic zombies as we were on Saturday. The storms were actually prettier than Saturday's as well, despite being subsevere.
 
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Great time lapse! I was on that southern band as well, stayed in the Albert Lea area, very photogenic structure for being sub severe. Those cells were screaming along, it was a good chance to practice positioning on such fast moving cells. Thanks for the video Skip!
 
I was visiting family in Stillwater, MN, and knew a chase wouldn't be in the cards because, well, no one in my family is insane enough to lend me a car, let alone drive me, for chasing purposes. I also realized that the big storms in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro that the news up there had been talking about were unlikely. Cap had been a concern of mine all day, so when there was still a stratus deck (albeit thinning) at 4:00 PM, I quickly realized that this would be a photo op for typical evening spring/summer storms, and nothing else. That's not to say I didn't get a few decent pictures of the very photogenic shelf cloud that developed.

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I love the scary-looking clouds in the first and last photos, and while these storms weren't even rotating, let alone putting down a wall cloud, I kind of wondered if someone was going to see them and, considering how much emphasis was placed on the risk for tornadoes in MSP (and the events of 4-13), call them in as wall clouds or funnels. It was refreshing to be blasted in the face with a cold gust front, but a bit nerve-wracking when I realized there was lightning on both sides of me, a decent-looking rain shaft coming in quickly from a different cell, and I had no idea how to get back to where I was staying. Oops.
 
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Sunday was one of my favorite days from the entire trip. A bust in terms of tornadoes, but a win in terms of pretty storms, and being able to stand, watch, and relax for a while! (chased with Brad Goddard & Skip Talbot.)

~J

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