Seize the storm

Thank you – Many sincere thanks go to the Baumbergers for allowing me to come into their home and share from my perspective.   My heartfelt prayers go out to you and your family throughout the cleanup, harvest, and rebuilding.   If there is any aid that can be offered by myself, through my website, or the chaser community – please let me know.

-The Baumbergers-  

A simple cloud turns into a storm, and that storm can turn from peaceful sunshine to chaos in an instant.   This tornado was on the ground less than a minute and 15 seconds after it made havoc on the Baumberger’s farm, it disappeared into the clouds with intense damage in its wake.   As it left, a family taking shelter in the basement wondered what they would find when they went out.   That is all I can imagine how it was yesterday afternoon.

Amy and I left early this afternoon to go meet the family.   We didn’t know them and it felt pretty awkward to show up at a stranger’s farm and tell them you watched it all happen.   I feared the potential ruthlessness it might be deemed as.   Not knowing exactly where the farm was, we meandered in the general area of where it happened.   We came upon many pickups lined around the corner of a section of gravel road.   I knew that there would most likely be people there helping out, but I was amazed and touched at just how many people were there.   I later mentioned my amazement to one person helping out and he replied, “You should have seen how many were here last night.”   Again, I was touched by the generosity and true care exhibited by the neighbors near and far.

I introduced myself and told them where I was in relation to their property.   They said they lost four buildings – a garage, a beautiful barn, machine shed, and another shed or coop.   Expressing my regrets, I handed them a  picture I took  of the tornado about 30 seconds before it hit their property.   No one was hurt, and that’s what  mattered most.    ”The rest can be rebuilt, but the trees will take some time,” said Judy, one of the owners.   After talking with them a bit, I told them that I had  video of the event if they wanted to look at it – they agreed.    Walking back to the car, I felt  very nervous because I didn’t know the effect would be watching part of  their lives blow away.  

They viewed the video and talked about it for awhile.    I did my best to answer the questions that they had and  they thanked me for showing them the video.    I downloaded my pictures onto their computer and told them that I would get the video  to them as soon as I could.   They allowed me to take a picture they had of the farm about a year ago.   We walked around a bit taking some damage photos and just looking in awe at the power of nature.

The video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4oYGrQVxLk

Damage Path

Background image taken from Google Maps.   Magenta is the approximate path of the tornado.   Red dots signify buildings that were destroyed.   My damage “survey” is not official or tied in any way to any official organizations.   These are simply my deductions.   This tornado was rated as an F1.   The house is the northeast building on the property.

-Only the beginning-

The pre-chase began with speculation last night.   I told Amy, my wife, that I didn’t think we should go out chasing because the storms were going to be moving at 60 knots.   I assumed the model was blowing it a little out of proportion and would check things again in the morning.   During the evening, I had dreams of seeing tornados…which is actually quite common for me, usually once or twice a week it happens.

This morning I slept in and got up around 10 and checked the models.   I first noticed that the Storm Prediction Center(SPC) had upgraded the risk to Moderate with a 15% hatched area over eastern SD and western MN.   I did my model analysis and came up with an area between Brookings and Sioux Falls.   This was my first inkling that I think I would actually go chasing.   I got my hair cut and came back just before noon to check the models again.   The storm motion had slowed down to 40 knots – still very fast, but at least more reasonable.   This was the final straw for me.

Teaming Up – I met up with Eric Whitehill at the Cenex in Brookings.   We opted to head south first and then west toward Madison.   Passing Madison, we heard of a severe thunderstorm southeast of Mitchell heading our way.   We continued on to Highway 81 where we realized we may be too far west.   Back to Madison we went and took a south option to who knows where.   We reached a stop sign where we pulled over and ascertained the situation – what route would be best, where the storm was moving, if it was severe enough to continue chasing.   I wanted to go south, but Eric wanted to go west.

A Mutt-ly Crew  - While we’re talking, a dog walks up and hops through Amy’s door and decides he’s going to ride with us.   No amount of “Get OUT!” would move this dog.   The owner finally comes over, taking his time.   Eric gets out and reaches into my car and pulls the dog out.   The owner leaves with the dog and we all just look at each other astounded.

Back to the chase – We ended up going west, a little to my worry.   After some meandering of getting closer and escaping by means of a very wet gravel road, we found ourselves crossing the road only miles south of the encounter with the dog.   It was here where we witnessed a beautiful corkscrewing roll cloud (is what I’ve been told).   The rotation was intense.   It eventually got close enough where we needed to reposition and so we continued on gravel roads to the east.   It seemed to die for a while and look like it wasn’t going to do anything.   At this point, we got reports in that there was a tornado over by Brookings.   We stuck to our cell and kept on heading east.

Tornado! – It wasn’t long before we saw rotation intensify about 5 miles northeast of Colton, SD.   The RFD was in the background and a circle of rotation formed.   I can only describe it as an upside-down bowl in the clouds.   Pretty soon, out of the center of the bowl, a wisp appeared and started weaving its way to the ground.   Up and down it went.   We saw some circulation on the ground that looked like condensation being whipped around so I knew it was coming in contact with the ground.   It was only a matter of time and chance that it would become fully mature.   Eventually, it did just that.   The condensation funnel continued its way to the ground and before long, we had a mature and very photogenic tornado.   After a bit, it looked like it was going back up but then it hit a farm.   Dirt, metal, and other debris erupted into the air.   Pieces were rotating around the tornado.   I was very glad that I saw sheet metal for buildings going up because I knew at least that the house had not been hit yet.   There was no more visible damage after this.   I learned later that a machine shed was hit.   The tornado also took out a garage and a tree.   The family – in their house at the time, but thank God they were safe and no one got hurt.   The tornado had done its work and was dissipating.   Now a funnel again, it yo-yo’ed a few more times (some more seriously than others), then went back up for good.   We followed the circulation for a while longer, but it did nothing.

Into Minnesota – After some bad route choices, I pulled out Delorme Street Atlas and got us back on course.   Within 20 minutes, we were back on the storm and witnessed a few more funnel clouds east of Tyler, MN.   Nothing ever came of them though.   On Highway 14, we met up with a tv crew from Mankato.   They filmed another storm that looked pretty neat but didn’t produce anything.   The convoy grew to 5-6 cars/SUVs and we meandered around Minnesota for a while but nothing too serious.   The storm was tornado warned but not producing that we could see.   After this, we headed back toward Tyler at which point Amy and I decided to head home.   Things were winding down for the night.

The next mission – Eric joined us again as we were heading west and we filled up east of Brookings.   A friend of Eric’s got the phone numbers for KDLT and KELO.   I finally got ahold of KDLT and they wanted to use my video.   Off to Sioux Falls we sped.   It was important to get to make the 10 pm news and sort of also to get there before the other chasers did.   Eric went to KELO and we went to KDLT.  

KDLT  rocks!  - The staff was very nice at KDLT, they took down my information, we agreed on a couple terms about the video licensing verbally and then they recorded the video.   Erik Zarnitz came in and chatted with us as they were getting the video.   I joked that I watch him every morning – which I really do (I really only watch NBC).   When they were done, he offered to give us a tour of the studio, which was really neat.   Then we talked shop a bit about the today’s setup and some other stuff.   After that, it was off to that steak dinner.

Tonight at 10 – Amy and I went to Bennigans for dinner and Eric came a bit later to eat with us.   I feverously made phone calls to people back in Brookings to see if they would tape KDLT for me since I knew we wouldn’t get back home in time to record it ourselves.   I enjoyed my steak dinner and at 10, we relocated to a tv with KDLT on it and watched my photage on the evening news.   It was a very satisfying moment and I was very proud of all that I’ve accomplished since I started chasing back in 2004.   We celebrated with high-5s and hugs.  

Miles covered: 344.7
Mileage: 31.64 mpg

My video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4oYGrQVxLk

Many thanks

There are a lot of people who helped make this happen – Eric Whitehill who let us tag along, Rory Groves who did nowcasting.   Also many thanks to the people over at StormTrack who’ve helped me grow in my forecasting knowledge.   Most of all, I thank my wife who supports me in my habit, …I mean hobby.   Countless hours on the road can make a person weary, especially if they don’t get Chick Fil-A out of the deal.

-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