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:

Dan Robinson's Copyright and DMCA FAQ: How the crime of copyright infringement took $1 million from me and shut down my operation

 

[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):

 

[Ben Holcomb]

Dumbest day of 2025 at least in the plains. Managed to see a Tornado(wash) in Iowa otherwise a bunch of trash cold storms.



Full chase recap of the Iowa Bust on April 28 2025 here

 

[Mikey Williams]

Sorry to be that guy but I'm gonna remind everyone of this day. As you can imagine, like everyone else, I did not come home with much this day. I was actually taking a childhood friend with me this day after school, which I will admit I was a little nervous and apprehensive to do so a few day out given how potent the risk was and that he had never been chasing. After doing the forecast during study hall, it became clear that the northeast Kansas target I had be eyeing for multiple days was going to come to fruition. I did not like the lack of low-level backing ahead of the DL, but I figured that at least 40 degrees of shifting from 850 to 700 mb would still be enough to get the job done, especially once storms turned right. And like clockwork, the midday SPC update upgraded my target area to a 10%# TOR a few minutes later. I noted that storms (especially from NAM guidance), may initiate out west near Manhattan, KS, but hodographs would be pretty straight until storms got north of Topeka and near MO on some guidance with PDS soundings. Because of this, I decided to send my friend and I to stage out of St. Joseph, MO after getting gas in KC and leaving after 4 pm. Kind regret not heading west on 70.

We pull into St. Joe to monitor trends and eat, then decide to head southwest into KS. On hour way to the town of Effingham, large and dramatic anvil overspread occurs with mammatus coming into view along with the silhouette of two supercells in front of use, with the southern one coming out of Manhattan being our target storm. We get into Effingham and on the edge of town to get out and enjoy the updraft and anvil structure of the distant cell with positive lightning strikes and anvil crawlers becoming quite common. I was irritated to see that after I had my maps up for like 40 mins, the storm had gone outflow-dominant, but because of a decent-looking hook, I figured it may have a chance at a hybrid type tornado (which apparently did occur just before this unbeknownst to us at the time). After rolling time lapse and getting lightning, mammatus, and meso shots, we reposition to stay ahead of the storm in case it reorganizes and to avoid hail. After getting back east we stop to check out the anvil lightning show and bump into storm chaser @Austin Jones and his chase partner. We then kept east in hopes it would wrap up. But after dark and the storm not getting any major rotation, it became obvious our day was done.

Lesson 1: never underestimate the importance of backed winds. Lesson 2: sometimes its ok to be a bit more aggressive and not wait for storms to reach what you think is the best environment.