Chase Logs 2008
Breakneck Speed: Race to a Tornadic Storm
July 19, 2008
1:00pm-3:00pm
Northern Anoka County, MNYesterday I packed up my summer dorm room at UMD and headed home for the weekend. The Saturday morning SPC outlook featured a slight risk for southern Minnesota, but little was expected for the Cities as the main boundary was set up over northern Iowa. With this in mind I decided to trek over to my grandma's house in Coon Rapids for the afternoon. Shortly before 1:00pm, a severe thunderstorm warning flashed on the TV screen for Sherburne County for a storm that had developed within the past half hour. I decided to do nothing since it appeared like the storm was small and would move through Isanti County. But just after 1:00pm, the TV came alive with a tornado warning for the same storm after a storm spotter called in a tornado in Becker, MN. Based on this new warning and radar imagery showing the storm starting to hook to the right, I elected to try and meet up with the storm somewhere between Burns Township and St. Francis. This would put me on the southwest corner of the storm and in prime position to observe any tornadic activity.
I swung by my house while crusing up MN HW 47 to grab my cameras and camcorders and was on the road again in five minutes. As I raced through Ramsey, a tornado warning was issued for both Anoka and Isanti Counties as a second tornado was spotted in Big Lake. I met up with the southern flank of the storm at the Ramsey and Burns Township border and waited to see what would happen. Shortly after 1:40pm the gray scraggily wall cloud appeared in front of the storm's main rainshaft (first three photos below). It drifted southeastward over the next few minutes and passed over me with little more than a gust of wind (last two photos below). The main rain/hail shaft engulfed me shortly thereafter and I ended up sitting on the side of the road waiting for it to pass. By the time the rain cleared, the dying wall cloud was in Ham Lake and moving too fast for me to catch up. I headed back home shortly thereafter. Both tornado reports were confirmed by the NWS.
