Today was a different chase, was not that impressed with the setup but I was able to chase to I made the most of it.
Target this morning was the area around Blue Earth, MN to Mankato, MN. I left the house after lunch as the first cell of the day fired up and dropped large hail west of the Twin Cities metro and I was able to avoid that storm. I saw reports of hail up to four inches in size. No thank you, that would destroy my Jeep and I was focused on finding some rotation and maybe a lightning strike or two.
Just north of Medford, MN, I stopped to check the data since Minnesota is now Hands Free and I can’t use half of my equipment while chasing. Saw the data and the MD for a possible watch that I posted earlier today. I checked the weather data and yes, it was MOIST!
The problem with today was the upper level winds. The storms had some sheer and were rotating but they were not moving all that fast and pretty much sat in place as they grew and started raining and eventually rained themselves out and created outflow and new storms.
The first storm of the day near Owatonna, MN was trying but it was just not that impressive while the original target area did have a storm that was over 51,000 feet tall. So I headed southwest and intercepted the storm near Amboy, MN . Below is a photo of the storm as it was growing before it became outflow dominate.
When I got over to the base of this storm, it split but I followed this to Blue Earth, MN and into Iowa.
*** Update *** I was going to just edit the video later today (Tuesday) but I started reviewing the footage and I actually got a brief touch down when I continued to follow the storms into Winnebago County, Iowa and I was pretty much shocked that it showed up on the camera but I could not see it but then again I had so much going on at that time with three different cameras and watching out for the storm that was about to slam the area I was at.
Here is the video from Winnebago County, IA