Storm Chase Details


Chase Date: May 8, 2014
Miles Logged: 1631
States Chased: IA, MN
Severe Risks: SPC Outlooks

Chase Recap:

I chased all evening on the 7th in North Texas and Southern Oklahoma, arriving back to Norman after 11pm where I caught a quick nap before showering and heading to the airport to pick up Andrew Newcomb who was coming back from Indiana.

I drove all night through Kansas and Nebraska, arriving into Council Bluffs in the morning. We stopped for a car wash in Council Bluffs and then continued on to Blair, NE where we got breakfast at Taco Johns.

I was headed through Iowa and their slow speed limits to Minnesota north of Spencer, IA.

Andrew and I sat under storms going up at Heron Lake, but didn’t see anything on radar and kept thinking the storm to the west near Sioux Falls might be a big player or some of the stuff blowing up further south, so we kept bouncing back between staying on the Heron Lake storms and heading back to Worthington. We ended up heading back to Worthington.

Realizing we made a mistake, we headed east on I-90 to Jackson and played catch up with the storm of the day which produced west of Mankato. We were about 10-15 minutes out (story of my life in Minnesota) when it dropped the tornado near Mankato.

The storm crossed the boundary and lost all supercell characteristics shortly thereafter, and we gave up heading back to Des Moines where we had Buffalo Wild Wings with my friend Megan.

I had a long day the next day, heading back to Norman and then heading out for DFW airport shortly to catch my flight to Philadelphia the next day.