I don't have much to add to what's already been posted. Mike Brady and I chased several TOR warned storms in Chickasaw County, IA (starting near Charles City) and Fillmore County, MN. We witnessed some great structure, several wall clouds, a funnel and what might have been a brief spinup. Not a spectacular day, but some photogenic stuff none the less. Tornadogenesis on our storms was somewhat constipated yesterday.
I was fortunate enough to catch the tornado south of Cambria/Randolph, WI and about halfway between them. It is the tornado with the LSR stating 4 inj. I planned to spend the inheritance to make the 5+ hour drive to well into IA based on Friday's progs, but things just didn't seem right. So I hung at home and checked data and progs in the mid-morning. I was excited to see the 70-72 dews making great progress to the north in WI, along with the wave clearly evident on water vapor in western IA already in the 9 to 10 o'clock hour. The 12Z RUC painted a sweet picture for central WI, with the backed surface winds here instead of in western IA, so I stayed put and got an oil change and mowed the lawn. Interestingly, there was a diffferential heating area caused by the anvil canopy of the morning linear MCS that was in central WI right where the moisture was surging into with the influence of the IA wave backing near-surface winds. I left Appleton at about 11:50 am, headed for Beaver Dam to get data. (Yes, I am anachronistic ) After trying to get data at a motel there and only getting data for a few seconds, and also my laptop fatally shutting down again just like in KS Memorial Day weekend, I saw enough, combined with weather radio to get me to head out WI33 west. However, it was under construction in Beaver Dam, with unclear detour markings, so I wasted a bunch of time driving around town. This delay at least let me be around Randolph when the tornado happened. All of the HP and more classic supercells in central/southeastern WI had awesome CG activity near the updraft regions. At least once I saw 4 simultaneous, multiple-stroke CGs in a 180 degree panorama in front of/to the side of me. Once again I drove through more rain during a chase than I will see in my tipping bucket at home in months. I came home to find 0.03" Anyway, on to the video:
Too bad the surface backing was absent for the most part. A few times the near storm environment helped out as well the interaction between cells but it still wasn't quite enough. Congrats to Andrew and Adam on their great catches in IL yesterday. Very impressive.
I turned Saturday into a "country drive" with the family, somehow we ended up in Iowa. My wife and son got to see their second tornado with me west of Stacyville,IA , the same one posted by Mark Humpage. I commented to my wife as we passed through town that I would pass on fueling up as I was low on gas and that I did not want to miss a tornado because of it. Well we certainly would have missed it because it was short lived and I managed to "pull a Fabian" and record the before and after portions of the tornado. I feel bad for them I missed documenting it for them but we did see a lot of nice structure and intense CGs although I don't think they were prepared for a 14hr round trip. LOL
We were surprised at the supercell that developed close to home that dropped tornadoes for 85 miles but were glad to find out that Andrew,Danny & Adam were on it. Congrats to them and cudos for there reports.
After stopping in Iowa Falls for a little Pizza Hut, we kept on northward on route 65. As we approached Mason City, the storms really exploded and quickly became severe/tornado warned. We caught the first one as it crossed route 65 north of Mason City. After it looked like it was not going to produce anything other than ragged lowerings, we opted for the middle supercell fast approaching from the west. This one looked fantastic on radar. We left route 65 and headed west to intercept it west of Manly Iowa. The thing looked spectacular as we approached it. Especially for Iowa standards lol. The entire rain-free base was slowly rotating, as a scud/inflow tail rapidly streamed in from the north. We were a bit concerned that the inflow seemed surprisingly weak. A few weak RFDs tried to cut in with only small lowerings resulting.
We had to quickly head south to get out of its way as it appeared the meso was moving due east. A mile or two down the road we noticed a much beefier RFD was cutting in, loaded with precip. As this was happening, a small but concentrated dust whirl began on the ground about a quarter mile to our west. It was just north of the RFD punch. We immediately stopped and snapped off a few pictures before the RFD slammed into us with heavy rain and strong westerly winds. There was just a small funnel near the ground, and attached to the cloud base. As we went south we could see the rain curtains wrapping around the thing as it crossed the road behind us. It was not very impressive at all, but since it was so close to us that made things quite a bit more exciting.
We gave up on that storm as it looked to be crapping out and a new supercell was approaching from the west. We headed west and crossed I-35 near Clear Lake Iowa, where we saw both TIVs and a DOW. This storm looked almost identical to the previous one. We waited for it to cross just north of us but the damn thing just wouldn't produce. For whatever reason the storms couldn't quite "wrap up" today.
After letting that one go, we saw a tail-end storm with some promise. This storm looked less impressive than the previous two, but we followed it all the way back to Mason City where the sirens were screaming. Ended up just east of town and watched a few disorganized looking wall clouds with no rotation. I think the most interesting thing was watching a smoke/steam from a smoke stack in the distance change direction as the meso passed nearby.
All in all not a bad chase day. Can't complain about the structure we saw considering it's Iowa lol. The day sure seemed to have much greater potential though.
Here's a time-lapse of the second supercell we intercepted west of Manly Iowa.
INCREDIBLE ..... will write more later. Chased down I - 57 caught a large violent tornado crossing I 57. Will post more later, was chasing with Adam Lucio, he was 2 miles ahead of me on 57!
Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I have JUST finished typing up a full report on the details of the June 7th tornadoes. Took a while to get just right, but happy to have it done. Constructive criticism and comments are welcome through comments as it is the first time in the ten years of exploring nature that I actually took the time to put something together and not post just pictures. It can be found here.
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) After trying to get data at a motel there and only getting data for a few seconds, and also my laptop fatally shutting down again just like in KS Memorial Day weekend
