Ok, Just wrapping up and working on the blog.
I spent most of the time shooting video for KSTP in Minneapolis and the networks since this was a major event hitting in Mid April. If were suppose to have global warming, why am I chasing a blizzard in April when I’m suppose to be chasing tornadoes? Oh yeah, I forgot, it’s not “Global Warming” it is now Climate Change or as I like to call it, Climate Tax.
This chase took a lot out of me since the drive was freaking intense just to get up to Duluth, MN from Minneapolis, MN I left my place around 5:00 in the afternoon to head up north since I was waiting around for my new computer parts and did not get much sleep the night before.
Honestly, I almost opted to stay home and focus on the local area instead of heading up north since the Twin Cities was under a Winter Storm Warning. I was thinking why drive 200 miles up north when you could get snow right in town. But after looking at the latest forecast models and surface observations all day to forecast when and where this event was going to happen, I went with my original forecast and headed up north.
Rush hour traffic sucked to say the least but when I got to the north side of town is when the real hazards started, the sleet.
From the north side of the metro around North Branch, MN to Moose Lake, MN the roads really started to get bad as I was following and now in the freezing line of the storm system where it changed from rain to sleet and heavy wet snow. There was a lot of cars in the ditch and I even saw what looked like a Tour Bus or Large RV in the ditch at one point.
When I stopped for gas in Barnum, saw a BMW in the ditch and stopped to shoot some footage. I think they had a new tow truck driver helping them out since he did not hook up the car correctly and I could hear plastic snapping as he was pulling out the car. How could I tell? He was using the cable from on top of the boom which at the angle of the cable was pushing up against the bottom of the front of the car causing it to damage the cars front ground effects.
Anyways, the stop in Barnum MN was a good thing since I was able to winterize myself and change into the space suit I pretty much wear all the time for chasing the intense cold. And it was good for me because as soon as I left this scene, I got back on Interstate 35 and a few miles down the road just outside of Duluth, I came across a 18 Wheel Semi Truck that jacked knifed about a mile ahead of me. As I got up on the scene I found it was blocking both lanes of Interstate 35. I stopped and another trucker was there to help light up the wreck so drivers would not run into the trailer. I talked to the driver who looked kind of pissed that I was not the state patrol but a news cameraman there too shoot video. Only his pride was hurt so I talked to the other truck driver who stopped and he asked if I could stay until the State Patrol showed up on the scene. So I lite the area up with all my flood lights on the front of the Jeep and then shot a bunch of video and snapped a few photos of the jack knifed semi until the state patrol showed up. The trooped thanked me for flood lightning the scene to help warn everyone else and then I was back on my way to Duluth.
Now I made it to Duluth before the snow started to fall but the winds were screaming with reports of sustained winds in the upper 40s and gusts to over 60 miles per hour. But it did not take long for the snow to start falling and it was not the lite fluffy snow but the heavy wet concrete like snow that is the worst to deal with. Even though the snow was the nasty heavy snow, this is all going to melt in a few weeks and help raise Lake Superior which has been dealing with a drought for a couple years.
The winds and waves were pretty intense during the over night hours and I broke off the chase about two in the morning to start editing and uploading footage to KSTP and the networks. I thought I was going to be able to get the video out and get some sleep by 3am but those planes were scrapped now that I got the footage out because now I was seeing thunder snow and power flashes form the heavy snow and high winds snapping power lines. When I got back from shooting some more footage for the station and the networks, I was staying up way past the point of being insane sleep deprivation and still had to do some phone interviews. Neva said I sound good but very tired on TV but hey, I was up all night and into the next day. It was pretty funny while I was doing the interview for The Weather Channel because I called it a frozen tropical storm and it was just like a tropical chase since I was now sitting in my hotel room, in the dark without power since the storm knocked out the power. I did have one of my powerful LED lights with that I use for scuba diving. That lit the room up pretty good while I waited around for the sun to rise.
All in all, it was a great chase but the down side of this chase was that I made the mistake of not bringing along a lot of paper towels to keep things dry and was using some hand towels. Yeah, fabric softener and camera lenses don’t like each other… And I forgot to bring along some food from home. Nothing special but anything would have been better then the food I ate… I had McCrap for two meals yesterday and today I feel like I have a McHangover with a massive headache from lack of sleep and eating bad.