Right Place, Right Time 8-21-13

Wednesday August 21st 2013 was the type day where if it wasn't really close to home, I would not even consider going for it, but being the dismal year 2013 has been for us, taking a chance was how it would have to be on this day. A marginal cold front was to be draped across Minnesota and northern Wisconsin in the afternoon and with instability at a high return of 3000-4000g of CAPE and moisture pooling in northwest Wisconsin ahead of the front that would be the target for the day, the only problem was lack of shear ahead of the front so line segments seemed to be the good bet, but with a stout CAP in place most of the day, a discrete supercell or 2 were not out of the question. The 11:30am SPC outlook featured a slight risk for severe storms with main threats for damaging winds and large hail, but a tornado or 2 was also mentioned.

 

We left Janesville about 10am to make sure we had plenty of time to get to our target before storms had started firing, we made the long trek up I-90 before stopping at a rest area near Black River Falls to stretch for awhile and re-evaluate our target. Shorty after cells had begun to pop way north near Superior and Duluth MN, quite a bit out of our reach. We did decide to move north more into position as we could see a cumulus field forming to our west. As anyone who lives in this area or visits it knows, this area is not ideal for chasing as very tall trees make any good visibilities limited. Around 4pm a storm formed to our north and West, the decision was now which cell to go after. after watching them for awhile and both seemingly dying with every scan, we decided on the northern storm which by now was nothing more than 3 separate non severe blobs and it looked as if we had wasted a day coming this far north for very little reward

Not very long after that something had changed and all 3 small storms had congealed into one explosive supercell with tons of cloud to ground lightning. After weaving in and out of gravel roads, forests and making several uturns, we finally found an open area to observe the approaching storm. by this time the storm to the west had also strengthened quite a bit and was moving east and on a collision course with our storm that was dropping more southeast. As the storm grew closer and closer, the ominous green tint was beginning to appear along with the roar of non stop thunder that reminded me of a beast in movies.

 

While observing this approaching storm we watched what looked to be a wall cloud on the back end of the 1st storm as the second storm approached us, out of the corner of my eye I caught a small rotating lowering that seemed to dance around briefly before going away, my 1st thought was tornado but also had a scuddy appearance to it so I was unsure.

 

After making a few more attempts to get back ahead of the storm, we quickly succumbed to the terrain and less than stellar road networks and the chase had ended. After reviewing video again I was all but convinced this was at least a funnel cloud and sent it to Todd Krause from the NWS in the Twin Cities for review. After a week he was able to confirm that 2 barns were badly damaged and this resulting in an EF-0 tornado near Cadott. Making it the 15th known tornado in Wisconsin this year.

 

 

In total we ended the day at 512 miles traveled and spent 10.5hours in the car :)

 

Video of the supercell and brief tornado can be seen here, thank you all for reading and be sure to like us on Facbook! https://www.facebook.com/WisconsinWeatherPhotography