Stearns, Meeker, McLeod, and Carver Counties Minnesota
Why can't the view out the window at my office look like this?
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| August 6 Stearns, Meeker, McLeod, and Carver Counties Minnesota |
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| Radar Images will be posted here when available from the NCDC | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Once again, another Saturday with potential which never really fully materialized. A weak surface low, a diffuse cold front, too little cap earlier in the day and a pre-frontal trough pretty much took care of it. Hung around home for the most part still recovering from the aurora trip the night before. Was thinking the early stuff up to the northwest on the wind shift line / trough may sustain but as usual with the weak shear, it didn't. Finally about 4 pm once the better (far from great) upper support arrived, a few cells running either right on or just behind the cold front took hold up to my northwest. Headed up highway 55 to Kimball, MN in Stearns county to await the arrivial of the first cell. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Just outside of Kimball, MN looking to the northwest at the warned storm. Nice inflow band from the southeast feeding into the action area with a well definded gust front on the left. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Here is one of the oddest things I have seen in a while. A mid-level horizontal shear funnel sticking out the front of the updraft pointing the in the direction the cell is traveling (southeast). Note the well defined inflow/outflow region on the right side with the psuedo beaver-tail coming in. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Crop of a 16 mm shot showing the shear funnel in more detail. Called John Wetter at NWS-MPX to left him know what it was just incase they received any spotter/law enforcement or public reports of a funnel cloud. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Southwest of the Powder Ridge ski area looking due west. The right side was rapidly developing a wall cloud as the left side gusted out. Another prime example of sometimes spotters and new chasers will get fooled into watching only the left side which has all the fast forward motion. On the southeast moving cells, really need to watch "around the corner" in the inflow/outflow interface area. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| South of Kimball now to the east of highway 15 looking back over the town with the wall cloud passing overhead. Had some nice rising motion with rapid condensation on the right side of the tail cloud but no rotation plus it was undercut. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| The Kimball cell was weakening so headed south into Meeker county near Dassell, MN as a new cell started to develop in a better inflow environment. Looking west southwest. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Heading a little west on 12 to get a closer look at an area showing a little curl to it. Why can't the view out the window at my office look like this? |
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| Had a little difficulty getting back around to the southeast of the cell as it went severe warned as I headed in to McLeod county northwest of Hutchinson. Dark as heck and handheld so please excuse the blurriness. Pretty decent motion and a little hint of a RFD occlusion but still pretty organized. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| With the VIL maxed out on the cell as I came into Norwood, MN in Carver county found the pefect spot to set up at a bank kitty corner from a Holiday gas station on highway 212 and across the street from the McDonald's with a very busy drive through. Figured I would let the hail core come over and shoot some video of people scurrying for cover. Then I noticed fellow TVN chaser Jacob Thumberger on the other side of town to my north. DOH! Nothing noteworthy happened (surprise). After some good natured ribbing via FB between myself and Jacob, retreated north to just outside of Waconia, MN to take in the lightning show as the cell headed into the south metro. This shot is a 15s f2.8 11mm shot. Simply a beautiful storm! | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Lightning crawling all over the updraft tower. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| The mosquitoes in the corn county of Minnesota are 1000x worse than the lakes and forests up north. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| I need to get back in the habit of carrying my 70-200 f2.8 lens with me again. This image is heavily cropped from the original at 16mm. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| I think I lost a pint of blood while holding still for this image. Shortly hereafter, the cell weakened and died. Time to head for home for some food and a transfusion. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2011 Chases | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||