It Was Windy

Oh my goodness, another amazing chase day in the books. After Monday's chase we kept our hotel rooms in Chamberlain, SD and drove to Northwood, Iowa on Tuesday. Between having a leisurely down day and an easy drive, I was really feeling those vacation vibes. I've finished 2 books so far!

Yesterday- Wednesday- we targeted west-central Minnesota. The Storm Prediction Center (SPC) was predicting an enhanced 3/5 risk for severe weather, mostly for hail and wind. Tim tabulated data from multiple forecast models and from SPC before deciding on an initial target of St. Cloud, MN. We made a leisurely start with lots of coffee before stopping for lunch and an oil change on the outskirts of Minneapolis, and got up to St. Cloud just as the first severe thunderstorm watch of the day blanketed the area. I took a delicious nap in a random park in a random town while Tim reviewed the afternoon model runs.

 

 

At first things weren't particularly interesting, as we bumped from St. Cloud to Alexandria. We had timed things well, but the storms weren't as photogenic as they had been in South Dakota. We played the Twister soundtrack for good luck, and as Tim volleyed between heading south and east to get ahead of the storm, things GOT VERY INTERESTING VERY FAST. The storm cells moved into more favorable conditions, warranting the smallest tornado watch I had ever seen. Spotters were reporting wall clouds and hail on other storms, but we were having trouble finding a good spot to watch the action. We were safe enough- we weren't even getting rained on, and the storm motion was away from us.

 

All of a sudden we broke out of a bunch of trees and IT WAS WINDY. A small, fast-moving rotating wall cloud- the precursor to a tornado- was coming right at us! I silently apologized to my parents for not being the [hopeful] 10-15 miles away from a storm like this, but the feeling of awe and inspiration that coursed through me as I beheld this meteorological phenomenon was incomparable. Philip Seymour Hoffman (of blessed memory) says it best in Twister:

 

 

 

 

We were just in front of the red stuff on the lower left part of this radar grab, just before our storm went tornado warned. The red box denotes the tiniest tornado watch I've ever seen. the smaller red boxes are individual tornado warnings.

As the circulation passed directly overhead, I could feel the wind moving in several different directions, and I took a video where I definitely got the date wrong (oh well) because I was too excited.

 

Tim and I knew that nothing was going to be as exciting as what had just happened, so after a celebratory pizza dinner -complete with a Minnesota cocktail- we hit the road back to Northwoods. I'll update about Thursday/today's chase tomorrow. What a show!