2025-04-28 REPORTS: IA/MN

[Pravin Gupta]

Despite a stout cap decided to drive to NW Iowa to hopefully catch a rogue cell. Planned to chase the tail end of the linear storms in Minnesota. Landed in Bancroft Iowa and witnessed a slowly rotating wall cloud about a mile west of town. It spun up rapidly but lasted for less than five minutes. I don't think that it was even reported. Was quite photogenic even though brief. Not bad for the first chase of the season.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Targeted notheastern Kansas, favoring the southern cells near I-70 as they tapped into the more volatile parameters toward late evening. The cells lined out early and became outflow-dominant before the better environment could be realized. The best I saw was this RFD cycle at Abilene, but it was already undercut by outflow from the forward flank/developing squall line.



Called the chase pretty early and headed home.

Full chase log here:

Great Plains 2025 Storm Chasing Expedition Logs

 

[Todd Lemery]

I was on the same storm(s) as Dan. It could never get organized and outside of a little hail fun it wasn’t worth the drive. Structure was really blah. The NWS did briefly put a tornado warning on it towards the tail end after I had already called it quits. I could only see a sign of rotation in one radar scan before it dissipated.

 

[William Monfredo]

Isolated cell at Worthington, MN near Lake Okabena about 7:45 p.m. My heart is full from this exhilarating thunderstorm behind the main line.

 

[William Monfredo]

Black & white photograph at the same location shows a chance lightning bolt at 1/60th of a second in the anvil of the low-precipitation storm.

 

[Robert Reynolds]

We left KC late afternoon and headed up I-29 into far NW Missouri where SPC had updated the tornado risk to 10% hatched.

Just outside of Craig, MO we intercepted this small supercell that was crossing the Missouri River from Nebraska. The setting sun and the storm structure gave us one of the most amazing sunsets I have witnessed in a long time. Our tornado count was zero for the day, but experiencing this in real time made it all worth the effort.

 

[Andy Wehrle]

Finished my video from last Monday. Rarely for me I have no complaints/regrets about how I targeted or executed the chase; it just wasn't the event such a strongly worded Day 3 moderate risk would have led one to expect. However I had my reservations going in given the CAM output. Ended up on the same cell between Ringsted and Bancroft, IA as a whole lot of other people. From the looks of it @Pravin Gupta is probably in my side view GoPro video going north from Bancroft.

The only really annoying thing was, en route home on I-90 in Minnesota and thinking I'd successfully threaded the needle ahead of all the storms, I drove into hail from a small core I wasn't aware was there because unbeknownst to me, my Radarscope display hadn't updated for 20 minutes. The cell was unwarned and it was only up to about penny size, but at Interstate speeds it was enough to leave a few subtle dents on my vehicle.

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

I woke up in Shamrock, Texas on 4/28 with Colin Davis and Charlie Kruschek, and after browsing morning guidance we opted to leave the new 10% hatched tornado probability area in OK/TX and drive north to the "middle" target near Kansas City. Settled on Topeka, KS as a target and picked off the lead storm coming down Interstate 70. This supercell let out a huge RFD surge near Wamego, KS which eventually spun up a dusty tornadic circulation on the north side of the RFD surge where it curled back around under the updraft. The tornado tracked several miles through Belvue, KS before dissipating.

We left this first supercell as it raced off to the northeast and got in front of tail-end Charlie as it passed north of Alta Vista, Kansas with a funnel cloud at dusk.

Storm Observation VLOG (~ 28 minute runtime):