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Early this morning I was treated to another wonderful show of the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights.  Below is the video and the photos from what I was able to see.

Wow what a fun day of storm chasing on a great setup in a perfect chasing area in eastern South Dakota.  The only down side for the day was my late start from home since I was waiting on a part for the Jeep to fix the vacuum leak. 

Once the new purge solenoid was installed, I needed to take the truck on a long drive to test it out and what better way to test it than to storm chase?  I headed up to Sauk Centre and then west on 28 and then over towards Sisseton, SD.  What was incredible about this chase day was the visibility and how far I could see.  When I drove down Highway 28 into Glenwood, MN, I could see the storm forming in South Dakota.  When I looked at the map plotted my position to the storm, I was 80 miles away from it and I could still see the base of the storm. 

As soon as I crossed over the boarder into South Dakota, the storm became tornado warned and Nick and Amanda were already on the storm and said they were seeing large hail and incredible structure.  Being late for the show, I was not expecting to see such an intense updraft on the east side of the storm but this is what greeted me north of Sisseton. 

The photo is from my phone and the video and time lapse of this is just intense.  I waited around for a while and even talked to a man that lived just behind where I was parked and explained to him that he might be in for some hail but this storm was moving to the southeast and there was a very low chance of his farm getting hit by a tornado, while there was a better chance of the hail, high winds and heavy rain.

After leaving this area I ended up where there were a lot of other chasers on the south east side of the storm and saw that Nick and Amanda were on the west side of the storm avoiding the hail core.  Eric Whitehill and I passed each other on the road and talked briefly on the phone and Eric told me that he was avoiding the monster hail.  So seeing that this storm was not likely to produce a tornado and only be a hailer, I pulled a card ouf of the “Laubach Chaser Hand Book” and drove into the core.  At first I did not see any hail and turned around and headed back east.  Upon heading east and ending up back to where the chaser convergence was before, there was nobody around and now the baseballs started falling from the sky. 

The most intense part of the day was when Nick and Amanda stopped to say hi after the first hail core hit my truck and moved on.  We were checking out huge hail stones when all we heard was CRACK-BOOM and lightning struck a power pole about 100 yards away from us.  That was intense!!!  We ended up meeting up again just across the Minnesota state line to watch the vivid lightning show and wait out the storm moving off to the east so we did not have to drive in the rain to go home.

Today was one of those great chase days where everything line’s up and falls into place.  Upon seeing the first storm fire and a lot of people get what I will call “Suckered” into chasing them up past Fergus Falls in the hills and trees when the second storm I was targeting near Wheaton, MN fired up.  I talked to Amanda and Nick who were already in place up there for the cell that was firing and I just hanged back to cover the south side in case the southern cells on the South Dakota boarder fired up.

At 4:14 PM, this is what the cell near Wheaton, MN looked like as I was heading towards it. 

After making the decision to bail on the southern storms in South Dakota since I was 25 miles from the Wilkin County, storm. I headed up highway 9. In just over 20 minutes the storm grew from a small updraft to a full supercell that was all alone and on the warm front.

After driving another 15 minutes to the northwest, I was watching a perfect wall cloud in the distance and could see the area of rotation. 

Soon it looked like this.

Ok so it Split The Uprights…  The tornado lasted about a minute but it was not the only tornado of the day.   The hail was not as large as the VIL (Vertically Integrated Liquid) was saying it was since all of the radar’s from the National Weather Service were over 100 miles away and the area is a major radar hole for any data.  Yes, that is correct, the Aberdeen, SD, Grand Forks, ND, and Minneapolis, MN radars are all over 100 miles away from the tornadoes today.  NOAA really needs to install a radar site up in Alexandria, MN to fill in the gap. 

Ok, enough with my views on poor government planning and lack of radar data.  I pretty much went off visual data today since I knew the area has the worst data coverage. 

Here is the video from today. 

And I’m starting a New Tradition.  For many year’s it has been a tradition to have a steak dinner after every successful storm chase. I’m bored with that tradition so I’m starting a new one.  After every successful storm chase where I go out to see a tornado and I see a tornado, I’m not going to eat a steak dinner.  I’ll eat what I want to eat and drink a fine glass of The MaCallan 18.  I can get a steak and cook a steak anytime I want but The MaCallan 18 is something that is only for special occasions.

Today was a warm up day to test out the gear before Sundays big chase day.   Here is the footage I shot just east of Saint Cloud, MN of the storms near Milaca, MN.

Today was one of those fun local chases where knowledge and skill was what was needed to navigate the rush hour traffic and road construction to anticipate where to be for the best or worst of the storm, depending on your perspective.  I pretty much played the north metro from Elk River / Anoka to Maple Grove and Plymouth.  I think there will be a lot of hail sales for cars in the next few weeks as a lot of people got stuck in the core on 494 in the north bound construction from  394 to the 94 split on the north side.  For the most part the hail was 3/4″ to Golf Ball sized with a few larger stones thrown in the mix to scare you when you hear the heavy THUD as it hits the roof of the truck.  I did have one problem today in the hail which is the GoPro stopped recording and then started back up, all on its own in the hail storm.  My guess is hail hit the start / stop button on the top of the camera and it shut off then turned back on after hail hit it again. 

Oh and for the idiot that can’t tell a “Lifted Jeep Grand Cherokee” with oversized tires from a Ford Escape, here you go. 

Get your eyes checked!  I don’t park in the lanes of traffic like that, EVER on primary roads and how the hell was I in front of you when I was over 2 miles east looking back west at the storm what looked more like a micro burst then what was reported as a tornado.

Today was fun. Woke up late but was well rested after finally getting 12 hours of sleep to chase an amazing storm in Richland County, ND.  

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Drove up to Richland County, ND and saw two amazing storms.  The first storm put down a bunch of golf ball sized hail and made the roads look like it just snowed. That storm weakened and moved off to the southeast and into western Minnesota to become a mega hail storm but never was tornado warned. I bailed on as it moved southeast of Wyndmere, ND.

I drove north for about 10 miles to the north on highway 18 and intercepted the next storm that was weakening but I had a feeling that it would regenerate and come back to life.  Boy did it ever come back to life as it rode the boundary to the east south east.  

On highway 18, once again I met up with Riley, who I met a few weeks ago near Benson, MN.  This time he had his girlfriend with him.  We chatted for a while and kept on chasing until we got on Interstate 29 and then he fell behind.  Was cool to see him and finally connect on Crackbook with him.  I was wondering what happened to him as I pulled off at the next exit waiting for them but turns out they had some car trouble and had to call off the chase.

As I kept on chasing after waiting a few minutes for Riley to catch up, I drove down Interstate 29 and knew the Red River would be an issue so I opted to head east on 11 towards Fairmount, ND.  I saw some chasers parked on the bridge over the interstate that almost became “Road Kill” by several vehicles.  If you are going to pull over to watch the storm, don’t do it in the lanes of traffic or on a restricted bridge with a lot of traffic.  Another SUV today was parked half way on the road in the lanes of traffic to take photos when there was plenty of space to pull off to the side of the road or in some driveway or farm field entrance. Every year the dumb ass parking on the road gets worse up here.

Here is the video, time to get some much needed sleep.

I think I have maybe got 4 hours of sleep in the last day and a half.  I’m saying today but in reality it is yesterday that I’m talking about in this post, excuse the really tired blogging 🙂  It all started on Sunday as the Hype Train was getting going for the forecast, which is still today for me but in reality is yesterday, for the area in Southern, IL.  The hype was for the 10% hatched forecast tornado area that SPC put out for the area which on paper looks good but doing my own forecast and from experience, looked too good to be true.

The forecast went from the graphic above to the graphic below.

Now before anyone gets pissy, I’m not bitching about the SPC forecast.  The 10% hatched looked to be valid before the monster high speed MCS from the early morning storms this morning, correction, yesterday morning, plowed through southern Minnesota and northern Iowa.

The morning storms really did a number on the forecast but I had a feeling they would and the forecast was also for Wisconsin, which just sucks to chase in anyway, due to the hills and trees.  Everything shifted south into Illinois and honestly, I have better things to do then drive to Illinois when I already had a full plate of stuff to document in Minnesota.

First up, today’s, I did it again, YESTERDAYS early morning storms were amazing to watch. 

The lightning was just simply amazing and at one point was more like a night club with the strobe effect from the flashing in the sky.

I drove out to Madison, MN which is on the Minnesota and South Dakota boarder as the storms were pretty much just getting going and provided an amazing light show for about half an hour before sunrise.  At Sunrise, everything clicked and the storms raced off to the east faster then I could keep up.  I drove home and took care of some work until the next big show started up in Iowa and Illinois and worked the desk until I was finally able to take a nap for an hour, only to have Neva wake me up and say the sky looked insane and we needed to go see something Amazing, the Aurora Borealis.

A G4 Class Solar Storm with a Kp Index of 8 caused a geomagnetic storm that filled the sky over central Minnesota.

The auroras were extremely bright and filled the sky as they extended over head and moved into the southern half of the sky.

The sight was amazing and we found a couple new spots to view them from just north of town where we could avoid traffic and people coming up to us late at night wondering what we were doing.  Also talking to my friends Amanda and Nick who were on vacation in North Dakota and they almost drove back yesterday to chase in the Wisconsin and Illinois mess, they finally got to see the amazing sights I always see living north of the Twin Cities metro area.   Amanda has never seen them until this evening and while I was talking to Nick on the phone, all I could hear in the back ground was what sounded like when someone chases and finally sees their first LP supercell with a tornado.   Yeah she was happy!  Actually they were both happy for blowing off the chase to go for the secondary target and it paid off for them.

At the peak of the Auroras, one thing I noticed was that my cell phone was not working.  It kept saying all circuits were busy.  I wonder if the geomagnetic storm was hurting the communication satellites.

What about the primary target?  One of my best friends in chasing, Chris Collura, got on the tornado in Illinois today and shot some amazing footage.  Sorry YESTERDAY.  Here is his video.

Yes there were storms, no I won’t even think twice about blowing them off if there is a chance I have to chase in Wisconsin. 

It has been an interesting week to say the least and it was good to wrap up and end it on a fun little chase about 100 miles to the west near Wheaton, MN.  While a lot of my crews went to chase the 5% tornado risk in Iowa, I looked at the forecast at 6am and said NOPE.  Nick called this afternoon to tell me that even he blew off Iowa and stayed in the Twin Cities.  Where there storms in Iowa? YES.  Where they worth justifying driving 6 hours south to chase them?  NOPE!  I’m glad the secondary target worked out but I had to take care of some obligations at home to help Neva out and then at the office so I got a late start and did not make it up to North Dakota but still love chasing in western Minnesota where the area is perfect for chasing.

Not a lot of lightning and the hail was mostly pea size to marble size but being home within two hours after the chase was worth it.  Time to get some sleep and consider heading to north central South Dakota later Sunday.

Tonight was one of those weather setups that was just relaxing drive in the country and filled with vivid cloud to cloud lightning in the sky making for a peaceful end to a somewhat stressful day.

I drove down highway 15 from home towards Hutchinson, MN which is about an hour south of the house (and more then 20 miles).  It was good to get out and just watch the slow moving storm that was all cloud to cloud lightning.  I’m not sure why some storms are like this one where I did not see any cloud to ground lightning strikes but I am not complaining ether since it was a little more safer in my mind but in reality, it was still pretty sketchy standing out under lightning flashing in the sky.

I was sitting back watching the lightning and just taking it all in when I realized, maybe I should also setup my still camera.  Below are the two shots from tonight that I like the best. 

In the first photograph, the lightning reminds me of some of my very early work from 1995 where the structure looks kind of like a a web.  Wow, thinking back to that photography from 1995 just kind of made me take a step back and realize that I have been doing this photography and video thing longer then some of the other people getting into chasing, longer then some have been alive.  And those days back in the 90s seem like yesterday.

Below is my favorite from today.  It only caught half of the lightning that filled the sky but it was close enough to fill the camera with a lot of detail within the cloud to cloud lightning. 

Well, it is late and I should get to bed before the sun rises so Neva and I can get the permits for the city compost since we did a lot of yard work this weekend and now the last of the clean up must be done so the yard looks great.

On another note, I really like moving all the blog stuff off of the social media and back to my corner of the interweb stuff.  This week I hope that Neva and I can finally pick a date and place for a nice small wedding sometime later this year.  As my mom said to use a few weeks ago, “Hurry Up, I’m not getting any younger”.

Yesterday I went on one of the many chases that “rumor” has it that I never do anymore since it was over 20 miles from home.  The target area for me was well defined days in advance and in an area that I love to chase in, western Minnesota where visibility is not a problem with trees.  

After helping Neva out with some much needed chores at home with the yard, I took off to drive out west towards my target area that was near Benson to Morris, MN.  The storms were just firing up and were looking amazing as I pulled off to a safe parking spot off of the road so as to not block traffic or be in anyone’s way.  A Pontiac pulled up and I was thinking great more locals to mess up my audio track on the video cameras.  Turns out I had to apologize to some new chasers that showed up that I was kind of rude to at first. I thought they were locals just seeing what I was doing and I was telling them to get out of the area as the radar was showing 2″ hail just off to the west of our location. 

We chatted for a few minutes before the rain started and the hail core was about to hit. I packed up my camera gear.  I was heading west toward the storm when I noticed one small detail, I failed to stop and top off the fuel tank in Benson before I stopped to document the lightning.  Whoops, I had to turn and head back to Benson for a fuel and then continue the chase. 

After filling up the truck, the radar showed the storm split into two possible targets.  One to my northeast and one to my southwest.  The southwest target looked better on radar and was closer so I took the closest option.  The storm looked decent and at one point the radar showed some rotation.

In the photo above, the rotation was very high based and before I could get the video cameras ready, the rotation faded away.  I was driving south to try and get in front of the storm where I could see it but the dash camera was not able to get a decent view due to the antenna and window frame in the way.  This is when I needed a chase partner to film out the passenger side. This storm pulsed up and looked good then within 15 minutes it started to weaken again.

The storm to my northeast pulsed and then weakened a little, only to build bake up and become a beast that moved off to east and it was in a area just south of home.  I followed the storm back home but I knew that there was no way I could keep up or even get back into the storm.  I was just enjoying the weather and the drive in the country as the temperatures dropped from 98F to 75F. 

In the city of Paynesville, I found that power was out to part of the city as numerous tree’s and tree limbs were blown down by straight line winds that helped to knock down the power lines.  Someone told me that the transformer at the hospital blew up due to the storm.  The firefighters told me that in the Cenex parking lot on old highway 23, large semi tractor trailer was blown over on its side and lots of trees were on buildings on the north side of town. They were correct. I saw a lot of damage and it looked like the possibility a micro burst combined with a lot of lightning that hit the area as everything was blown in the same direction over a several block area.  I did not see much damage near my brothers cabin and off to the east of town so the damage was localized to the city of Paynesville. 

Here is the video from the chase.