With the watch in place and a little excitement starting to build, a few storms started to pop up just west of the Wisconsin border in far southeastern Minnesota. The storms would soon become very strong very quickly and get severe warned for large hail. As we were still heading north we could soon see the outline of what looked to be a rather large anvil from the storms. As we drew closer the storms were growing more and more and showing no signs of weakening, the only problem was we had to make a decision to either turn west and go meet the storms along the Mississippi river, or wait them out moving east. Being the rather impatient duo we are, we soon made the decision to shoot west towards the storms, basically right back into the same terrain we condemned the day before.
As we approached the storms more storms were starting to pop up to the south and seemed to be stealing some of the energy from the northern storms. After awhile the 3 storms to the north had congealed into a big beastly blob and now the sights would be set on developing supercells to the south, which would put us right about in the Richland Center area again. While making our way back to intercept the developing southern storms, the northern storm had came into view on a large hill, so we decided to stop for a few pictures and let the storms to the south develop. By this time the sun had started to begin setting and made an awesome backdrop for some sweet lightning shots.
After sitting in that spot for a bit, which was clearly a marked gravel road, we were approached by a rather large mean looking man in a cowboy hat wondering what the hell we were doing on his land, after explaining why we were there he graciously let us stay there and shoot some more pictures before moving on our way. While we sat there for a few more minutes, we watched the sky give us an amazing show complete with a decent mammatus display with the sun setting in the back ground. The storms to the south were now a little more matured and we headed on our way back southwest to meet them, pretty soon we would be greeted with the anvil from another monster storm.
As we continued to try and get into position for the storms, we would soon be in the same exact spot as the previous day. Worry began to set in that we would once again be cut off because of almost unchaseable terrain and once again go home disappointed. As we drew closer and closer we would soon experience a 1st for me, coming face to face with 2 different severe cells and all on a collision course to meet with the direction we were headed.
Driving thru the hill country the lightning and sunset structure was an amazing sight. Soon after finally getting into the north storm, the southern cell was basically sucked into the north storm and formed into another rather large cell. We weaved in and out of the hills for awhile, getting some glimpses of the base of the storm every now and then and could clearly see the storm shift into outflow dominant state and starting to bow out. As we continued to hang around in this storm for another 20 minutes or so, another discrete cell was starting to form on the southern end of this congealed mess and soon became the best looking cell of the day. After contemplating our options, we decided to make a run for the southern most storm that was starting to look very interesting. You can see my location in regards to this storm on the current radar image.
With the sun now set, we knew this would be a whole nother challenge trying to get into position for this storm. Not long after heading south more, we got a nice view of the storm from the north side and it had almost that classic supercell look to it. As we got a little bit closer the storm we had our sights set on went tornado warned, like clock work a new little cell formed right over our head and kept us in heavy enough rain on the curves and hills so slow us down and make it pretty much impossible to get into good position for the storm. Soon after coming to the realization that we were to far out of position and would never be able to make a play on it, we started the trek home. The ride home was filled with non stop lightning and outflow winds from a building complex of storms, we drove thru some blinding dust storms and saw sections of the roadway covered in tree debris, mainly leaves and small branches. We were also able to see a gustnado form amongst the leading edge with the lightning illuminating it and briefly spin for a few moments and dissipate.
What had seemed like a total lost cause of an area had become the very area that now hosted one of my favorite chases of the year, the storm that was tornado warned did produce an EF-2 tornado, and although we were unable to get to it, we left the area with a sense of accomplishment that we successfully chased an almost forbidden area. Below is a picture of the mammatus forming at sunset by Jason Schwartzlow, also you can see video below. Thank you all for taking the time to read and share my journey with me! :)
