6/29/05 REPORTS: No. Plains

[Mike Peregrine]

Photos and a full chase report from the Cottonwood Co.-Mankato, MN storm are up on my website now at:

http://www.stormseason.com/062905.htm

Wish I could have taken some time to get some better shots of this storm, but it was a fast-moving supercell and tough to work with that way ... still a lot of fun.

 

[Skip Talbot]

Jacques Tiegs and I also caught the rope southwest of Mankato, a couple miles north of the small town of Medalia. Beautiful hollow tube rope with nice contrast. We kept up with the storm and saw a nice funnel thicker than the rope about a third of the way down a couple miles north of Lake Crystal. Excellent day... this chase made the year.

VIDEO: http://www.drugrecognition.com/skip/chase/...0629/050629.wmv

This is what happens when a rope ropes out... a thread.

Second funnel (which apparently was a tornado although I couldn't confirm that from my location)

 

[Douglas Mitchell]

Great day, started off going to work, then getting off and going home at noon. Left Chaska around 1 pm, initially targeting Granite Falls. Decided based on a hunch to head a bit further south, went down to Redwood Falls and collected data at 3pm. Was just about to pack up and head north to Benson for better SFC flow when 4 small cells blew up in SW MN. I waited for awhile, determined to be on the best storm, finally decided to drop further south towards the Windom area. Got brief data update in Windom, showing that the storm up by Marshall/Redwood Falls was tornado warned (DOOHHHH!!!) and the one I was on was weaking (double DOOOHHH!). Based on visual, I stuck with this cell and saw a nice rainfree base as I drove 62 west out of Windom. After training cell runs into main updraft, I give up on cell and decide to take my chances on the Marshall cell. As I drive back into Windom, I look over my shoulder and BAM. A large funnel on the backside of some precip.

SORRY ONLY CRAPPY VID CAPS!!!!

Couldn't tell at the time if it were a funnel or a tornado, but spotter had it down a tornado. Supposively it hit a farm or two. Then I head back into Windom and drive north and east along 60 trying to catch the sup. The meso was definitely cranking but the cloud bases on this storm was a little high. Met up with Kurt Hulst and crew in Watowan county. And I continued on my way up 60 paralleling storm. After a brief jog to the north, a funnel comes down rather far from the main meso. This is the Madelia tornado, very brief but pretty.

The tornado only lasted about 45 seconds after i got out of the car.
I continued my way on 60 heading towards Lake Crystal and Mankato when I once again look over my shoulder and see some rather close rotation. I sit down amongst 30 locals and tape a funnel cloud that prompted the Tornado Warning for Nicollet County.

After some maneuvering in Mankato, decided to call it a day and make the short 40 mile hop back home.

NOTES:
Wx-Worx system is fried
Forgot Inverter-only had 2 hours of battery life
My weather radio has no signal switch button ( i remedied that by sticking it between my legs until it lost signal and would search for new station)
My cell phone was pretty much dead.

FUN FUN FUN CHASE!

 

[Mikey Gribble]

Today was a good chase to end my mini chasecation on. I was on the tornadic supercell in southern Minnesota and got two tornadoes. My day started with one blunder after another. I was exhausted after chasing 5 of the last 6 days. I set my alarm for 6:45 and woke up at 7:15 when the front desk called my room. Apparently my alarm had been going off for 30 minutes and guests were complaining (my alarm is very loud). After I woke up I decided to lay back down for a second. This was a bad idea. I fell back asleep and woke up at about 10. I took a quick shower and loaded the car. I had very little time to forecast so I pretty much went off of what the models were showing at 00Z. I was originally targeting SE South Dakota. I got antsy watching the storms up North and decided to go to Watertown and got on the storm on the tail end of the line about 15 miles West of the MN-SD border. The storm got organized very fast. About twently minutes after showing up on radar it already had a very nice looking updraft base that was fairly low to the ground. After about a hour, the updraft base had began to take on more of a shelf cloud appearance and I decided it was time to move South. When I am out of Kansas I pay absolutely no attention to where I am so I have no idea where my exact locations were when I saw things. That being said, I got on a tornado warned storm North of the Cottonwood county storm. As soon as I got to it I could tell it was quickly weakening so I continued South. About this time the Cottonwood county storm went tornado warned. I heard reports of a tornado before I got to it and I think I missed the first one it put down. Once I got on the storm, I didn't think it looked like a storm that was going to put down a tornado, but it did. Here is a video grab of the first tornado I saw. The funnel appeared at 7:50 and the tornado touched down a few minutes after this.

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The tornado lasted several minutes before roping out. I don't think the second tornado I saw got reported. The funnel never made it more than half way to the ground, but I was well within a mile of it and it touched down at least three times that I saw (two of which I have on video). Skip you may have gotten a second tornado if this is the "funnel" you are talking about. Here is a video grab of the funnel right before it touched down. The time was approximately 8:27 give or take a couple of minutes.

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I only heard this reported as a funnel on the weather radio, but it was in fact a tornado. Here is a video grab of one of its weak dust spin ups.

edit - SPC storm reports now have this tornado recorded

[/url][/img]

I am worn out and ready to go home. Not a bad chase today. I wish I would have just stayed put down South instead of jumping the gun and rushing North only to turn around and come back. Oh well, that is just how it works sometimes. I am just glad I ended up bagging a couple of tornadoes. At about 6o'clock I thought the day was going to be a bust for sure. I wasn't about to give up though and it ended up paying off. I about T-boned some local that was playing chaser. The guy pulled out right in front of me without even looking and proceeded to drive backwards down the middle of the road in front of me. I honked and he didn't even bother to turn around and look at me. He just kept on cruising in reverse down the middle of the road like it was nobody's business but his own. It was one of the stupider moves I have seen a local pull when out chasing. Congratulations to everyone else who got a tornado today.

 

[Doug Raflik]

I was on the same storm as the others. I was going solo and really didnt pay much attention to where I was, so I can not say where these pictures were taken, but those that were on this storm should recognize them.

I was on this storm since initiation back on the SD border. I almost got suckered into going after the storm just north of it after hearing the torn reports, but a last minute decision made me beleive that this storm could, and would do it to. Glad I did, as the northern storm must have died a fast death soon afterward. At some point along the way I saw this...

The storm then seemed to disorginize for some time. After who knows how long, I was looking at it thinking it looks a little better, and then a spin up happened right in the feild next to me. No time to get any pictures, as I had to quickly pull over. I let the circulation get a little out in front of me, and about 2 minutes later, this little gem formed...

Another poor attempt at a funnel came later, and that was it for the chase as it was getting dark, and it started heading towards the metro area. I am beat and am going to bed.

Doug Raflik
[email protected]
http://www.wxnut.net

 

[Kurt Hulst]

Fianlly made a collaberation from my video grabs to get this tornado all in one fram by making it out of 3 seperate frames. I hope that tells you how stinking close i was.

Holy Crap. Close tornadoes today.

Started the Day with Eric N. Scott Blair and Scott Currens. Met Doug M. along the way and i also Talked to Reed Timmer for a few minutes. He can tell you his story of the year. All in all I witnessed 4 tornadoes.

Heres nader 1

Um wheres the debris cloud from this one. (this was on the fground for 7-9 minutes)

Um oh there it is. I was to close to get the whole thing in on one frame

It definetly picked up

This is all i could fit in on one frame

Heres the top part

This continued for about 5 minutes and took for ever to actually disaspate, if you were not right there it would have looked like it was over after 3 minutes.

Then another breif touch down that picture is to hard to tell. but its there.

And the last one of the day for me. Which was hard to tell was on the ground but Reed Timmer was living proof that it was. Thank God hes still alive.

So heres the ending of the last tornado

Heres Reed and his little friend on his right shoulder.

THE END

 

[Jayson Prentice]

So I didn't grab a tornado.. But, I'm going to post the report anyway!

Alright... Well first idea right away in the morning was Luverne, MN. So, we headed out about 1230 after the tornado watch was issued and were just going to take highway 18 close to the SD/IA border. We stopped in a couple of different places and got info. But, once we got into Rock Valley we decided to continue east instead of heading north into Luverne. ($%#!) We ended up in Beresford, SD in perfect position right along the CU field that had quickly came up. We sat there waiting for one of these to go big and then I got a small glimpse of a cell just south of FSD. We waited one more scan and we knew that was the one. We flew up on I29 and then onto I90 trying to catch this thing as it was flying northeast... But, to no avail we just couldn't get the right road network to do it. After that dissapointing loss we stopped in Worthington, MN. We sat and I watched this storm that was just out of our reach continued showing meso's and reports of tornaodes. I was pissed and looked like to a end of the day... So we figured we would head back towards home. Took a little detour and went up towards Lakefield, MN and then took 86 back down towards Spirit Lake. Well at this time I knew there was a small echo out of FSD by the Hartley, IA area. So I called down to the radio station to see what I could get from my Met down there. He said it was only showing 25 dbz on there radar, but he did an RHI scan for me and the top was 25,000'. I was sure this thing would do something and it did! We got into Iowa and got some rain, continued south as this time it wasn't even severe. But, we got into Milford and there she was, a very nice wall and funnel! My dad didn't see it but I told him to take a quick right and then we had it in nice view. It was a lot better in visual than what the camera did beings the contrast wasn't that great. People in Spencer said they could even see it from there.

So now we are chasing finally!! We waited on this thing to do something, but it just never wanted to. Tornado warnings then went out on it and a cell to its south. I thought about the cell south beings it would probably take over, but thought we were on this one we might as well stay on it. We followed it through Milford and that sucker took off to the northeast and it was time to play catch up once again. Any other chasers in the area probably wouldn't have caught back up to it, but this is my territory and we knew the roads perfectly. We got back up to it just south of Superior and this thing was looking interesting. Some beautiful scuds, but only very slight rotation. We continued to watch it as it finally produced a nice funnel out of the side. We couldn't tell if it was rotating, but after talking to some spotters they confirmed that it was. After the funnel it got a nice wall and then it was lost. We decided that this thing was too far ahead of us and we couldn't get into position so thought of another option. KICD radio, (my radio station ) was showing some rotation on their radar just southeast of Terril (MY HOUSE!) and we booked down there. We punched through this thing and all we got was rain... That right there pretty much ended the night chase wise. But man was that cell pretty!! A huge HP supercell that I had many pictures of, some nice mammatus too. Finished up going down to Spencer and chatted with the EM's and Bruggom (meteorolgist) down there. And stopped on my way home in attempt to grab some lightning...

All of the pictures are up - (link fixed) http://photobucket.com/albums/v319/NWIASpo...e%2029%20Chase/

(Some nice supercell shots are my pride for this one I believe)

 

[Dick McGowan]

Left KC area around 1 pm. Didn't want to end up in Minneapolis, (which we almost did anyways.) Saw two cells going up to our north along the IA/MN border around 720 pm. Caught the southern one, sort of. Southern cell was moving 50-55 mph. As we approaced Spencer, we could see a wall cloud to our northeast, and pretty much tried to keep up with it on county roads, until we ended up a mile and a half into Minnesota where we shot some photos. I arrived home around 7 am, woke up around 1230 and am going to head to sc/se KS here shortly. Thank you Eric B for nowcasting for us. Congratulations to all that scored.

 

[Mike Umscheid]

I chased high based severe storms in Central KS yesterday, more or less for the photography only. I didn't even take my camcorder with me. First severe storm I intercepted was east of Russel in postrock country:

<img src=http://www.underthemeso.com/albums/2005jun29/DSC4827.sized.jpg>

Here is a pano of a weak storm a little bit later as more storms developed along the weak cold front:

<img src=http://www.underthemeso.com/albums/2005jun29/DSC4840stitch.jpg width=700>

Finally, I noticed a big dark area of activity to my distant southwest, and I made an intercept at that near Cheyenne Bottoms just north of Great Bend... this severe storm did have some weak rotation with it:

<img src=http://www.underthemeso.com/albums/2005jun29/DSC4895.sized.jpg>

Mike U

 

[Craig Maire II]

HIGH WIND EVENT!

Quick chase summary:
1 st chase:
Saw an AWSOME looking shelf cloud (VERY tough looking) along with intense CG lightning in hardin County, Iowa near mile marker 158 along highway 20 last evening and then right after that experienced the strongest winds of my life a couple of times as I shot video during this storm, winds gusted well over 75 mph at times with semis being blown over, 5 to 6 inch tree limbs down etc. The weather service put out a severe thunderstorm warning for "my" storm and said that HURRICANE winds in excess of 80 mph were likely and they were right!!! At one point it felt like my car was going to be blown away and the wind was ROARING outside-I sent in numerous spotter reports to DMX and KWWL Channel 7-Some of this footage will be shown this evening at 5 and 6 pm.

2nd chase
Witnessed winds gusting to around 65 mph in Benton County, Iowa along with INCREDIBLE CG lightning and very heavy rain; cleared some LARGE tree branches and garbage cans off the road in Vinton Iowa (Benton County).

 

[Doug_Kiesling]

06/29/2005

Chased with Rory Groves yesterday. Got the Hanska MN / Brown County Tornado and the funnels near Lake Crystal MN. All in all it was a pretty great chase day. Video is posted on my website http://www.lightningboy.com

 

[J West]

No chase due to work, but the barely-severe line that was supposed to be an SPC-proclaimed wrath-of-God derecho came over while I was at work. I managed to snap this shot with the digi camera:

 

[Kyle Masters]

I don't have any photos, but I'll post anyways.

I left Sioux Falls at about 5:00 and headed east. I could see nice development already. When I was hearing tornado warnings when I was still at Luvurne, I got worried I was late. But anyays, filled up with gas in Worthington and headed out on MN 60. I cought up with the storm just northeast of Windom where there were already several chasers lining the roads. I was the black monte carlo driving alone Picked out a couple from Texas and Iowa. We were all sitting (under the meso) watching outstanding vertical motion and rotation, but nothing was coming down yet. Group wise we'd hop a couple miles northeast then stop again. We were looking up at the meso/wall cloud when, lo and behold, drives past the infamous Tornado Intercept Vehicle. I thought, if he's here, I must be in the right place. Kept hopping northeast, when, out of the blue, was the nicest small funnel with ground circulation I've seen. Outstanding. After tracking that and it going back up, I decided it was about time to head home. Stopped at Burger King in Windom and heard tornado warnings for Jackson County. I thought "heck, that's on the way home" so chased those, but got nothing. End of day.

Outstanding tornado though.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Updraft and developing tornado south of Storden MN.

Tornado along the highway due south of Storden.

Pretty cool, intense vortex overhead ene of Windom. Video clip here:

http://www.extremeinstability.com/stormpic...ics/05-6-29.wmv

Death of the Madelia tornado.

More pics and account here:
http://www.extremeinstability.com/05-6-29.htm

 

[Darin Brunin]

Dick covered everything pretty well in his post so here are a few of my favorite pics from 6/29.