Statistics:
| Initial Target: | Aberdeen, SD |
| Departure: | Westchester, IL 6:00 pm CDT July 12 |
| Arrival: | Pelican Rapids, MN 10:15 pm CDT July 13 |
| Intercepts: | Abercrombie, ND |
| Tornadoes: | 0 |
| Hail: | Non-Severe (not measured) |
| Wind: | Non-Severe (not measured) |
| Features: | RFD Gust Front, RFB |
| Miles: | 1,075 |
Summary:
| Dryline/Coldfront setup across North Dakota/South Dakota into Minnesota. Targeted Aberdeen, SD initially for area with better instability. Target failed to initiate by late afternoon so went ever tornado warned supercell that had been ongoing for hours in central North Dakota. Intercepted right on ND/MN border near Abercrombie noting HP structure. Followed storm into Otter Trail county MN until nightfall, noting photogenic structure, but nothing close to a tornado. |
Crew and Equipment:
Solo chase. Equipment: Kenwood TH-F6A Tribander, Dell Inspiron Laptop. Kyocera data card and router, Holux 236 GPS, Robotic camera dome with Sony XR-520V.
|
Video:
Details:
| Tuesday's setup looked like a pretty good day before the day type setup across eastern portions of North Dakota and South Dakota. The upper level energy hadn't fully arrived yet, but a nice dryline/cold front was forecast to setup across the area with enough shear for some isolated supercells. Discrete supercells can be very photogenic on the northern plains and with a big tornado event forecasted the next day in Minnesota, I decided to give this chase a go. |
 |
My data card wasn't working and my phone, which was just a backup, wasn't tethering, so I had no data. Not wanting to chase without data I almost teamed up with Adam Lucio, but instead grabbed Danny Neal who wasn't going to chase because he had to be back by Friday. I agreed to have him back by Friday and we'd use his datacard for radar updates. Adam and his girlfriend Deb, Danny and I headed up to my family's cabin up in Montello, Wisconsin the night before. It put us four hours closer to the target area, but also committed us to the play in southwestern Minnesota as we wouldn't make the storms firing earlier and much further north in North Dakota. Our target still looked great though with stronger instability and better speed shear. |
 |
| We were up at 6 am and headed over to Sparks Grill for breakfast and then blasted down 90 across southern Minnesota. We stopped in Luverne, MN where it looked like the dryline was setting up. Danny's datacard didn't work in my router and his laptop wouldn't charge on my inverter, so we basically had no data except for radar summary graphics on his phone's tiny screen. Adam wasn't faring much better as his Sprint mifi wasn't working and his ATT cell coverage was poor. While trying to find wifi we spotted storms going up way off to the east. We raced northeast after them fearing that we had permanently fallen behind and would miss the show. Looking east at the back end of a severe warned thunderstorm: |  |
| We punched the line of storms noting a big RFD clear slot yet high rain free base. Tail-End-Charlie was starting to look decent way down in northern Iowa, however, so we raced south to intercept that. We heard tornado reports coming in on the way down and again we feared we had missed the show. We blasted east on 90 to get ahead of the storm and clipped the core with some gusty winds and small hail. Heading south towards the town of Kiester, we got a look at the storm's base. A pointy lowering came into view which got our attention, but was probably just the back end of a wall cloud being pushed out by the RFD. The base quickly became wrapped in rain as another storm from the south pushed north, consuming this storm. |  |
| We headed back north a ways hoping to get downstream of the storm as the merging storms organized. Several miles to the south, through the rain, we could see the base and as we drove along Danny spotted a funnel starting to develop. I didn't know whether to pull off to shoot the developing tornado or keep going so we could get closer. I wound up swerving between the lane and shoulder, while Danny was hanging out the window video taping, with Adam behind us bemused by our erratic behavior. We kept going up to the next south road option while Adam stopped to shoot the tornado, and our caravan was split. Heading south we got some decent glimpses of the tornado before it dissipated. |  |
| Excited with our tornado intercept and relieved we hadn't missed everything, we started to move in closer for a better view. A new cone tornado started to develop, partially rain wrapped (right) while a satellite tornado also formed out ahead of it (left). With simultaneous tornadoes on the ground we could see this storm was going bonkers and would be a tornado machine. |  |
Adam and Deb joined as at the Applebee's for dinner and we saw a couple other groups of chasers had converged on the joint as well including Jeff Duda, Simon Brewer, and Justin Drake. Adam, Danny, Deb, and I shared stories and it was a great ending to an amazing chase day. Adam and Deb followed us back east after dinner but broke off and got a room in LaCrosse, WI while Danny and I continued on to the cabin, making it in at about 2 am. |
|
| Conclusion:
With initial concerns about targeting and fearing that we had fallen behind, this chase became one of my best of all time. I saw more tornadoes on this chase than I had seen on any previous chase including multiple wedges. Tragically, the large wedge tornado that passed north of Conger and west of Albert Lea was rated EF4 with a fatality and devastating damage to several homes and farms. It was the first deadly tornado I've witnessed and it was a sombering experience hearing the damage reports come in. The tornado was up to a mile wide at times and had rolled a car 3,200 feet. The tornadoes we tracked were part of a much larger outbreak across Minnesota and North Dakota with several dozen tornadoes including a total of four EF4's. It was the worst tornado outbreak the area had seen in decades.
|
|
|
Lessons Learned:
|
|
|
|
|
