August 13 Chase Account

Traveled a total of 96 miles this evening from my home, north just across into Minnesota, and then back south to Spencer, IA before returning home. Only a total of two and a half hours actually on the road, with nearly all of it spent with a storm in sight. Arrived on the severe warned supercell as it was pushing southward towards the Iowa border, saw a lowering with the storm that was coincidentally located near the strong inflow notch that was now showing on radar.




Continued to get just ahead of the storm, finally had a place to stop just north of Lake Park, IA and watch this lowering as it slowly rotated. This rotation eventually was one of the reasons behind the tornado warning issued for Dickinson county.




Followed the storm as it went south towards the Great Lakes area of Spirit Lake and Milford. The visibility of the storm deteriorated quickly as a very wet RFD cut into the storm. Continued to drift south in front of the storm as some outflow took over, this created a unique feature with some smoke as it was pulled into the storm.



Ran into some hail 6 miles west of Milford, IA; approximately penny sized with some of the larger stones. Also ran into more hail around pea to dime sized west of Spencer around 5 miles. Didn't try to find the hail, as there was the potential for some pretty good sizes; up to 2 inches in diameter was reported in Lake Park.

You can view the entire album of pictures online: August 13 Album
Wasn't pleased with the turn-out of the images tonight, will have to review and see if some setting was off as it was a fairly rushed chase this evening. Can't say I was disappointed in the chase though, getting on a tornado warned storm and seeing some fairly nice rotation with the storm only 30 miles away from home!