5/25/08 REPORTS: MN / WI / IA / IL / KS / TX

[Darrin Rasberry]

Bit on the northern storm in Iowa today from its birth, since we were sitting right there near Dows and thought it looked better initially on radar anyway. It developed a wall cloud within minutes and ended up looking as menacing as I'd ever seen, but it didn't produce. We were captivated by this storm's structure and weren't aware of Charlie eating everything else and turning absolutely awful until our severe wx sounded. Since Waterloo is Craig's hometown, we dove south to do an intercept, but when we got to the northern part of the Waterloo area, we stopped - stunned - on the side of the road and waited for it to pass. It was a truly menacing monster, and the gamble to not core the thing paid off, since we passed a truly awful scene at a mobile park minutes later down the road (an EMS was heading to the area, so we continued).

We trailed the storm on the southern end for quite a while. We knew destruction was going on and we knew a tornado should have been right there in sight, but we could see nothing. The storm - full of swirling edges, odd structure, and just plain tar-black evil - built itself south over our road and eventually convinced us to head south, alongside fifty or so cars evacuating from the towns of Strawberry Spring on down.

After hearing of the deaths, we had a pretty miserable ride home. We stopped to attempt to unwind with the TOR-warned Tama storm, and witnessed a brief funnel and some kitty-litter sized hail. Since then it's been one of those endless, sleepless "should I give up chasing after this horror" nights for me, even though I'm on little sleep and am exhausted after four straight days of chasing.

The kind of devastation over the area is one of those things that make you sometimes think twice about chasing - especially when it is over your home turf and you missed it. Makes me wonder if we picked the south storm if we could've saved someone. But we played Charlie on May 10th and missed the Picher storm; this time we played the more favorable northern storm and missed Charlie. It's hard not to fault ourselves, especially given that Craig's hometown got hit, but chasing is sometimes just the "luck" of the draw. You just don't know, and you have to do the best you can when you do know - and that's what we tried to do.

 

[Ben McMillan]

Just getting in after a very emotional day...I left West Des Moines yesterday and met up with Ames, Iowa chasers Quintin Erdman and Kevin Sarazin.

We were targeting north-central Iowa. We quickly intercepted the isolated supercell that formed near HWY 20 and I-35 which eventually killed 7 (as of 5am) in Parkersburg and New Hartford.

We reported the first touch down to the National Weather Service of what became the Parkersburg Wedge. This resulted in a severe weather statement mentioning a confirmed tornado being issued 9 minutes before the wedge entered the town.

We, as spotters, wished we could have provided more warning. However, this storm was so intense it went from wall cloud to wedge in very little time. When we visited the forecasters on duty at DMX a few hours ago, they said they were all amazed at how fast the storm developed the tornado.

We entered the town before fire-rescue personal were present. We quickly left, however, after realizing the danger of leaking gas and pesticide tanks. What was so eerie was the fact that we entered an area with at least EF 4 damage and could not find anyone around or even hear anyone yelling for help.

All of us became sick to our stomachs after realizing the magnitude of what had transpired. The Des Moines Register is reporting this is the worst tornado disaster in Iowa since 1968.

More to follow including video and possible stills once our team gets things in order…

I am going to bed…

Ben

 

[cdcollura]

Good day all,

Chased in Kansas today with the Verne C, Tony L, and Tim Samaras's group. We caught the tornado and supercell near Bison and La Crosse in Ruch county near Highway 4 and Highway 183 before outflow domination took place!

Above: Rotating wall cloud and funnels near La Crosse.

Above: Another funnel near La Crosse.

Above: Small tornado near Bison.

Above: Close-up of debris cloud on the small Bison tornado.

Above: Gust front as storms transition to outflow dominant.

Above: Funnel on the gust front.

Above: Gustnado north of Sanford.

Full chase account can be seen at the link below (in the section for chase 2008 from May 19 to June 1)...

http://www.sky-chaser.com/mwcl2008.htm#MAY19

 

[David Draun]

We left Omaha, NE at about 10:30AM targetting the Hays, KS area. As we approached south on 183, we could see the Cu towers developing. Things went from clear sky to too many HP storms/supercells in a hurry. We saw lots of outflow features, got semi cored by a couple storms in Ellis County, and watched the gigantic Barton County meso turn right and line out into the SE marching squall line. I think we knew nothing was going to happen when we saw the DOW, TIV, Scout vehicle, and a convoy of over 30 other chaser/spotter vehicles going toward the same storm. These storms got outflow dominant in a hurry after 6PM and it got really cold as well. Lots of differential motion in the scud, even some overhead rotation in the shelf cloud, but nothing that would scream "Tornado!" Congrats to the ones who got south of Hays before the early tornado show began. A fun chase, with some awesome lightning and some hail/wind, but not much else. Core-punched the squall line on KS route 6 to get blasted with horizontal rain, marble sized-hail that accumulated like snow, and a probably 60 mph headwind. Turned on to 183N and hung it up for the night back in Hays. Playing the warmfront today.

 

[David Hoadley]

5/25/08 REPORTS: MN/WI/IA/IL/KS/TX

Started chasing from York, NE, I reached Dodge City about 2PM and was drawn northwest to the storm that dropped a brief tornado ENE of Scott City (near Manning). I arrived just minutes too late. When that base began to seriously outflow, I charged east on Hwy 4 to catch the tornado warned storm near La Crosse. I saw that base, just before the rain shield from a developing cell blocked my view. I continued south and east on Hwy 4, driving through the rain/light-hail core, in time to break into the clear and tape the tornado south of Bison (SE of La Crosse). At that time, it was a angled cone from a flat base, with a dust tube on the ground. Tough day to forecast and chase!

 

[Bob Schafer]

Similar to other posts re: LaCrosse. This vidcap is from video I was shooting as I drove E on Hwy96 towards Rush Center, view is to ESE, and is from 2054Z. I don't know if the rotation was in contact with the ground at that time, but the condensation was not. If someone knows that ground rotation was present then, I'd love to get a PM from you.

 

[Angie Norris]

Well, I headed for the dryline yesterday in the TX Panhandle with a target of Canadian. The ongoing sup that produced near Channing and Four Way had turned into an HP beast, and visibilty was not optimal. I left the storm near Spearman as it was weakening quickly, briefly considered trying for a new storm near Stinnett, but given the fact that road options were not good, and I couldn't even see the storm, I cut my losses and just came back home.
Got to figure how to get WxWorx to work!!!

 

[Josh Richardson]

Like I said in my brief report before we couldnt seem to get any decent vid of the wedge as it was so rain wrapped and not visible from our vantage point. We were on the west side of it all the way down Cedar Wapsi Road where it did damage to a farmhouse, enough damage we had to turn around and find a different path. After this point it would move on to hit the south end of Hazleton. Here is a short clip of the damage in that town.

http://www.iowastorms.com/temp/05252008_02.wmv

 

[Bill Doms]

Started on the sup in Wright county shortly after initiation which eventually spawned the fatal torn in Hugo, MN. Fast moving HP coupled with traffic in a metro area was too dangerous to continue the pursuit in northern Hennepin and Anoka counties.

Full chase report on my blog

More pics on my website

 

[Jerry Funfsinn]

First off, our thoughts & prayers to all the victims and families from the devastation caused by the tornadoes in NE Iowa yesterday.
I did not think I would catch the storm as I was behind it for quite a while even as the first reports came out. With a storm motion of 40mph NE I figured I would head east as fast as possible and hope it would turn right which it did. I must have hit every stop light in Waterloo on 63 northbound, but had to stop at the last one out of town as bedlam broke out. Emergency vehicles were stopping everyone and the hoards were bolting south as the circulation passed the highway ahead of me. I managed to get out of town and catch up with it again near Dunkerton. I saw a brief white tornado which I believe was a satellite from the bigger circulation south of Fairbank. All of this lead up to an intense huge rotating base where a monster lurked in its core south of Hazleton. I reported this as a rain wrapped tornado and if you look at the video you can see why. I continued to follow the storm to just west of Dubuque where I reported a weak tornado east of Deleware. This was a dangerous storm to chase and I had to retreat south numerous times trying to get a view of the notch. With the high dewpoints and low visibility it was easy to get in trouble fast. I slowed down the end of the video to provide a perfect example of "what am I really seeing" when looking at an HP supercell.

You can find the video on my website or click here.

 

[Jeremy Ludin]

Chasing w/o constant access to radar is becoming a major issue for us as of late. After stopping at a Super 8 in Cresco, IA, and learning of the PDS tor watch, our hopes were pretty high. After grabbing a quick bite to eat, we shot west and learned of the first tornado warned storm SW of Mason City via weather radio. We then shot south and punched through the forward flank and pulled off. A wall cloud eventually did develop and showed some pretty nice rotation, but the storm was quickly choked off due to the Parkersburg cell. After spotting another cell with a nice, broad rain-free base, we realized it wasn't going to do anything. The decision was made to try and catch up with tornadic cell near Greeley. We probably drove through the freaking core for a good 40 minutes which was a pretty white-knuckled drive at times. By the time we caught up to our cell, it look very shelfy and showed no more signs of tornadic development. Another looong, sobering drive home soon followed after a pretty painful bust.

Looking to the east toward where the Parkersburg cell would have been.

An atomic bomb of an updraft after shooting east toward the Greeley cell.

 

[Melanie Metz]

Dave and I were heading home from a family gathering in Oklahoma and decided to chase in KS along the way. We targeted Ness City and ended up on the cells along 96 and witnessed the brief spinup near LaCrosse. Besides the touchdown, it was great to see some nice structure again! It's been a long cold winter in MN.

 

[Kurt Hulst]

IA May 25, 2008

Bob Hartig, the Osterban brothers and Jason, David Diehl and myself started the day in Sioux City, IA. Moved east to the I-90/I-35 corridor and waited. PDS tornado watches went and so did the storms. We dropped south into IA, and raced to intercept the tornado warned storms. As we neared Charles City debris was falling out of the sky probably from the first tornado or two. David and me were separated from the other four so we then dropped south to Fairbank and then dropped south from there to Dunkerton where we then headed 1/2 mile west. The wedge then emerged from the rain and the west side of the tornado was visible. It took on a May 3, 1999 OK look. It was closer than it looks in the video.

It then continued east of Dunkerton and was then due north of us were it was almost impossible to see. We headed east and witnessed the eastern edge of the tornado illuminated by a large column of brown dust.

We then continued on east south of Hazelton and witnessed the same flash Jerry did but looks like we were 1 mile farther south.

After that we meandered around and met back up with the other four we started the day with. We were indecisive weather to continue east to the Manchester tornado or not. We met up with Fabian Guerra, near HWY 20. witnessed lots of rotation above our heads and Fabian pointed out as strong rotation was occurring over our heads a tight spin up about 12 yards wide and maybe 50 yards to our east. We could count this as a possible tornado which i think under the circumstances in which we witnessed it could be ruled as a brief 20-30second tornado/gustnado. It was a very tight tube that lifted debris into the cloud base and fell back down on us. Which I will try to post a video of later this week. However i was unable to get the tube on video since my camera was in the car.

A few videos of the day.

This is a WMV file for better quality youtube hacked it.
Dunkerton Wedge



Strong Lightning strike:



thoughts and prayers go out to those who lost homes and loves ones.

 

[Dean Baron]

For the most part yesterday was a bust for me. I was down in Northfield, MN with a couple other people, expecting storms to fire. We saw the storms fire out towards Willmar, but they didnt look good. Decided to wait for storms to fire closer to us, expecting them to produce, they never did, while we watched the storms hit north of Minneapolis (no more than 10-15 miles north of where i live) and produce very distinct hooks. A couple structure pics, nothing great:

The rest of them:
http://midweststormchaser.tripod.com/05252008/

 

[Rod Donavon]

Came in from the east on the Parkersburg storm and got a visual nearly 6 to 7 miles away. Ended up stopping about a mile south of New Hartford as the Tornado approached that town. Tremendous inflow into the storm with winds around 50 mph out of the south. Shortly after we stopped, noticed a satellite spin up around 1.5 miles straight west of us heading our way. After a few minutes it dissipated. Ended up seeing tremendous RFD winds 1/2 mile to our south as the storm moved east of New Hartford. Appears the RFD winds were 90 to 100 mph and this is what heavily damaged the RV dealer just north of Cedar Falls. The Waterloo ASOS ended up recording 93 mph winds in the RFD! We ended up loosing the tornado about 3 miles east of New Hartford as dust from the RFD and rain wrapping around really began to obscure it.

We also did the damage survey today. Will be having the QRT go through on Tuesday so hopefully we can send out a final rating by late tomorrow. All I can say about the damage is unbelievable. The areal survey shows the damage path was around 3/4 mile wide near Parkersburg to New Hartford then began to weaken 3 miles east of New Hartford with mostly RFD damage for the next 4 to 5 miles. Tornado strengthened by Dunkerton. Path Width in this area is up to 1.2 miles wide. Go to our (DMX) website for more details as we will be adding images over the next few days.

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/dmx