2008 Chase Year

Stay tuned for a wild severe weather season. I have joined the Severe Studio's chase team.  As a member of the chase team we will have 5 storm chasers with live streaming video from our chase cars.  That's right, you can watch the action live from our vantage point.  We hope to have 5 chasers on a single storm and get 5 different angles of the storm. My chase car will have live streaming video of the storms I get close too.  Stay Tuned!!

April 24, 2008

The first chase of the season was on April 24, 2008 near Fulda, Minnesota. There was not much for storms, mostly heavy rain.  I was also testing out my new live stream video from the chase car. You can watch live video of the storms, full motion video. Check out Severe Studios (www.severestudios.com/livechase) for watch.   Below are a couple pictures of rolls clouds.

 

2007 Chase Year

Not much happened in 2007 for my chase season. I spent most of the summer in class and studying for my EMT certification. Now that is done I can go back to chasing during the spring and summer season.

March 25, 2007

The first chase of the season was on March 25, 2007 near Owatonna, Minnesota.  I made it all the way to Owatonna and took some pictures of the storms.  I was also testing my new Live Tracker in the chase car, which allows you to view my chase with my Dash mounted camera.  It uploads a picture every minute to the web site, so you can watch me chase the storms right from your computer.   Below are a couple pictures of a great towering cumulonimbus clouds showing real up drafts in that storm.

2006 Chase Year

September 16, 2006

A late summer storm rolled through on September 16, 2006 from South Dakota to the Twin Cities.  My chase started heading towards the storms in eastern South Dakota  near Madison, SD.  Being in rural South Dakota and Minnesota cell coverage was minimal but with the expert Now Casting from Rory Groves, he pointed me in the right direction of the storms. I think I covered about 275 miles in the chase.  Rory captured what he calls a Chaser Wolfpack of Storm Chasers heading into the storms, see small blue arrows in picture to the right. 

Around 6:30pm I was watching a storm south of Hwy 14 and Hwy 23 overpass and met up with other chasers;  Ed Ballou and Eric Whitehall, Andy Revering, Shawn Hewitt, and others. The final chaser convergence was about 7 cars including a channel 5 (KSTP) car with a camera crew inside.  Other Storm Chasers with great coverage of the storms were Joshua Jans and Randy Hill , and Bill Doms. Click on the links for these chasers to view their pictures and read their chase logs. Great job Everybody!!  Congrats to Ed Ballou on catching the tornado in South Dakota!

I was driving to a storm and noticed of two my right was a storm and what appears to be a wall cloud with touchdown of what looks like a tornado. Since I was not closer and could not see any rotation we can not call it a tornado. This is probably a "Gustnado" and not a Tornado. Check out the Severe Weather Glossary for explanations of these terms.

Another couple pictures of what looks like a sideways funnel, just rotating cloud and what looks like a clear slot behind it.

These pictures were taken on Hwy 23 and Hwy 14 overpass looking south, this storm was the one that passed over Marshall around 7pm.

These pictures were taken just south of Marshall around 6:45pm from the south looking North. You can see the outflow finger reaching toward the ground. There was no funnel reported from this storm but the sirens were sounded in Marshall around 7pm.

August 1, 2006

On August 1  a few thunderstorms rolled through southern Minnesota and northern Iowa. These thunderstorms were very severe and violet and produced two tornadoes in southern Minnesota (St James and Butterfield).  At 7:15pm the first tornado touched down 5.5 miles southwest of Butterfield, MN.  The National Weather Service rated the tornado as a "F3", that means the winds speeds were between 158-206 mph.  The second tornado touched down at 7:43pm 4 miles south of St. James, MN and was rated a "F1", wind speeds between 73-157 mph. Both tornadoes were devastating to farm houses and buildings and to crops.  For further details on this storm and tornadoes, go to the National Weather Service web site.

I was out chasing in this storm but picked a larger storm cell to the south of St. James and Butterfield thinking it would produce tornadoes and severe weather.  Well it did produce severe weather as in heavy rains, hail and high winds but no tornadoes. The storm cell did produce some great video of lightning and heavy rain.

The storm had very low clouds so taking pictures was very tough along with seeing 50 feet in front of the car.  I did manage to take one picture in Jackson, MN facing west as the next storm front approached with the sunset in the background.

(Click on each image below for larger picture)

July 13, 2006

On July 13, 2006 a few thunderstorms came through Southwest Minnesota near Granite Falls, MN and east of there.  These storms were mostly linear and produced high winds and

large hail.  The pictures below are from the storm near Granite Falls, MN at 6:55pm. They produced high winds (69mph at airport) and large hail (3/4 Inch). There was some crop damage from the high winds, which looked like straight line winds.

The first couple of photos were taken 1 mile south of Granite Falls, MN. on Highway 23.  

(Click on each image below for larger pictures)

Picture of the radar of the storm passing over Granite Falls, SD. Next few pictures of the crop damage from the storm.

The next pictures below are Roll Clouds, notice the spiral look in the clouds. This occurs when there is ascending and descending air close together.

The last couple of clouds are Shelf clouds and taken south of Granite Falls, MN.

June 5, 2006

On June 5, 2006 a few thunderstorms came through Southwest Minnesota starting around 6pm.  Most of them were not severe with just heavy rain and some high winds.

The first couple of photos were taken west of Wabasso, MN.  The next few pictures were taken around Lamberton, MN later that night. 

(Click on each image below for larger pictures)