Chase Logs 2008
The Needle in the Haystack: Microburst Supercell Event
July 14-15, 2008
8:00pm (7/14) - 8:00pm (7/15)
The Minnesota ArrowheadThe day started out promising with a slight risk out for northeastern Minnesota, with the possibility of supercell development. I watched the satellite and radar screens for most of the afternoon at the NWS in Duluth, but by 4:00pm nothing had formed and it looked like whatever would form that evening would develop close to International Falls and stay north of Duluth. I left for the day and headed down to the harbor to take photos of boats. The skies were crystal clear and temperatures were in the 70's with dewpoints in the 50's that evening in the harbor. As the sun began to set behind the hills, I noticed a prominent thunderhead encroaching on the western horizon (photo below). Another thunderhead was barely visible to the northwest and the southwest.
Worried, I left the harbor and went back to my dorm room to see what was going on. To my astonishment, there on the radarscope were three large tornado warned supercells. One was in between Grand Marais and Ely, another near Virginia, and another near Grand Rapids. I tracked the cells for most of the evening and began prepping for a lightning chase. By 10:00pm, the Virginia cell had tracked southeastward and was positioned between Duluth and Two Harbors. I packed up my gear and hightailed to Hawk Ridge for lightning chase number two. This one, unlike the first chase to Hawk Ridge, went beautifully. Despite the storm tracking slightly farther north than I would have liked, the lightning bolts were still in range of my 14-42mm lens. The storm dropped numerous C-G bolts over the hills and a few on the lake (photos below). Shortly after midnight, a second storm began emerging over the hill to my west. Shortly thereafter it started raining and I packed up for the night.
The next morning I found out just what I had missed at the NWS. One storm cell formed near International Falls while another developed northeast of Bemidji. The International Falls storm split in two, with the first storm tracking through Ely and Grand Marais and the second storm diving south through Virginia and Duluth. The Bemidji storm tracked through Grand Rapids and points to the southeast of there. Storm spotters and the public reported possible tornado damage with all three storms, so my Hollings mentor, Dan Miller, one of the office interns, Mike Bettwy, and myself geared up for a daylong storm survey. We first traveled up the North Shore and then up MN HW 1 towards Ely. Our first stop was the small town of Isabella, where meteorologists had tracked a strong hook echo the previous night. After inquiring about the location of possible damage in the area, we traveled east on Wanless and found a few downed trees, but nothing too impressive (last four photos below--Mike is in the fourth photo and Dan is in the fifth photo). We also stopped to enjoy the forest scenery (first photo below).
We then moved about a mile west and traveled up Lankinen Road and hit the jackpot. Numerous large trees lay across the dirt road with a path cut just wide enough for the NWS van to make it through (first and second photos). We surveyed the north side of the downed stretch of trees, finding some structural damage and an overturned pontoon boat (third and fourth photos below). We then crept through the maze of downed trees on the Lankinen Road once again and tried to survey the southern extent of the damage path. Here we found more structural damage, with two trees lying against a log house (fifth photo below).
The owners of the house allowed Dan to climb up on one of their structures and get a better look at the damage pattern. After a few minutes, judging by the direction of the downed trees, he determined that the damage pattern was that of a microburst. It was likely that the microburst hit the ground at this site and then "bounced" along for several miles, resulting in the other sporadic downed trees we saw a few miles to the east. We surveyed the damage for a few more minutes (photos below) before packing up and heading out.
We attempted to find the western extent of the damage swath for about 45 minutes, but the densely wooded areas and lack of roads made this attempt futile. Shortly after noon we drove up to Ely, noting any damage we saw along the way. We ate lunch in Ely and then drove to Virginia, MN to look for damage from storm #2. We looked around for about an hour but found no damage whatsoever. With daylight burning away, we drove out to Grand Rapids to look for damage from storm #3. We found a few trees down along a highway north of town, but nothing overly impressive. We picked around for another hour before calling it quits and moseying back to the NWS in Duluth, arriving shortly before 8:00pm. I learned a plethora about storm surveys as a result of this trip, not only how detailed they can be, but also their subjectivity. Looking for storm damage in the forest is no easy task. The densely clustered trees and limited roads make this task next to impossible. A tornado could have touched down less than 50 yards from a road and we would have likely missed its damage.
