Seize the storm

-Reality Sets In-

Might I begin by first offering my sincerest condolences to the family of the man killed in Kasota.  As a storm chaser, you hope you never have to catch a killing weather event.  It happens though, and so we hope by our efforts that notification lead time increases and informing the public about the dangers of weather be taken even more seriously. 

It begins - The chase started in Brookings.  Amy and I met up with Eric Whitehill and then got straight to business.  We decided there were two options, go east into MN for something where we knew the cap was breaking or hold back and hope that the cap would break in SD.  We elected to rush east.  By the time we got to Tracy, we could see towers entering mature, supercell structure.  We were too late, but hoped that with the conditions, maybe these could be prolonged supercells.  We got a call from Kevin Haney and he said that Rory was watching a tornado over by Nicollet.  We continued on past Highway 71 where we were stopped by road construction and had to wait a while.  After getting out of the construction, we had to pass a few cars that were going slow. 

The doober - My four cylinders can’t get me around the cars very fast.  At one point, I was doing my best to pass this pickup as a car was coming from the opposite direction.  So this doober I’m passing decides he’s going to speed up.  I didn’t even realize that’s what he was trying to do because I was concerned about the car coming.  Finally, I make it around him and realize that he’s right on my tail.  I look in the rear-view mirror and see him waggling his finger at me in a ‘No, no’ fashion.  I couldn’t believe that he’d speed up behind me, so I raised up my hand in a ‘What the heck are you doing’ and also a ‘What are you going to do about it now?’ fashion.  I just continued on.  No, I never justiculated at him.  He decided to go exactly the speed limit for Eric, so it took a while for Eric to pass him as well.

Damage in Nicollet - There were more reports of a tornado going through Nicollet and early reports sounded like the town had been wiped off the map, but once we got there, we were thankfully suprised that most structures stood intact.  The damaged corn shots my wife took are on the south side of Nicollet, where the tornado entered town.  It destroyed the fence around a pool there, and continued along the street in the title picture, uprooting and snapping off limbs of trees.  The police had pretty much locked things down by then so we couldn’t venture into Nicollet at all.  From news reports to follow the next morning, one house was pretty well demolished and others had their roofs blown off. 

Finally on the storm - We continued eastward to Mankato.  We began to see a wall cloud and a couple attempts at a funnel.  Realizing the need to get more north, we took a turn toward Morristown.  With Eric leading by this time, he asked me how close I wanted to get.  I told him that probably I wouldn’t want to get very close with it being my first possible tornado and all.  Honestly, I told him that if we got to close, I might wig out a bit, but that we’d just follow him.  We followed the west side of the storm, and then took a gravel road to the east and eventually to the highway that led into Morristown.  It was here where we stopped and got a couple good pictures and also some video.  Now the storm to our south was weakening and the storm to the north, strengthening and back-building toward us.  Pretty soon clouds were racing in from the northwest and I got the feeling that something might be afoot.  There was one more guy in a white van behind us that pointed to the north direction and that got me wondering more.  So I asked Eric if he thought it was getting a little dangerous.  He stopped and looked around, kind of felt the wind direction and declared that it was time to get the heck out of there.  The guy in the white van headed west, and we went east.

The escape - The wind was coming in bursts as we went through Morristown.  Somewhere along the way, we hit the rain and the wind got so bad that it was ripping leaves off trees every once in a while.  The only option was to continue east.  We finally made it out of the heaviest rain and to I-35 where we parted ways with Eric.  We went south toward Owatonna and he went north to the cities and back home in ND.  There was a lot of hail from Medford to south of Owatonna.  Cars were parked on the side of the road and at times, the rain was so heavy that you could barely see the road.  There was even some minor flooding over I-35, known only by the accompanying whoosh against my Hydroedge tires with the spray flying past my driver’s side window.  As we exited the storm, we got a great view of the rain-free cloud base.  The southern edge was still pretty turbulent.  We watched clouds go this way and that.

Taking a breath - We pulled over for gas and potty break.  The men’s restroom was locked - why does that always happen?  Anyways, I forgot to mention that my laptop had died back in Tracy, MN.  I have no explanation for this, it just would not turn on.  I checked my power chord and it was plugged in properly.  I tried it again as we were filling up and it finally turned on.  I got data and found out that the storm near Owatonna was still tornado warned.  At the very moment I look over at SD and see that there were some storms over there, I get a call from a friend in Brookings who has family in Huron.  I told her the towns that were named in the tornado reports and she was relieved that they weren’t where her family lived.  Kevin Haney called me and said he was at a Timber Lodge Steakhouse with Rory Groves, enjoying a successful chase.  

Perspectives - As for us, we headed home.  A long drive it was too, especially the foggy part from Sioux Falls to Brookings.  It was during the drive back that I got to soak all this in - the damage in Nicollet, the images of leaves being ripped off trees, and the minor flooding and hail.  Even now, I’m still trying to soak it all in.  It definitely puts things in perspective about the power of nature and fragility of the things we buy, build, and even our human bodies.  Would I do it again?  Of course!  I’d just leave earlier!

Miles covered: 471