NW of Madelia, MN

I left Appleton, WI at 8:50 am and headed west on WI 21 to I90 west. On the way out, a black bear started to cross the highway in front of me, just west of Necedah, but thought better of it. My original thought was that I was going to play the warm front in the southern third of Minnesota, and that the storms near the low/cold front in SD would be too far away for me to intercept them in western MN and then have to head all that way back to Appleton to work while potentially having to fight off a fast-moving derecho the whole time. I pulled into Albert Lea, MN at about 1:15 and refueled/got lunch and headed to the library for internet access. They sure don't give you enough access time to help a chaser out. To my dismay I discovered that the warm front had surged northward under the cover of the low-level jet/warm advection precipitation that was prevalent across northern IA and southern MN all morning. The significantly deepening upper level low was drawing the warm air northward more quickly than anticipated. The warm front already lay east/west, just on the north side of the Twin Cities, and then southeastward across western WI. What to do? Should I head back east and play the WI portion of the warm front? Should I rocket north and pass through the Twin Cities to MAYBE catch up with the warm front across central MN? Or should I head west toward the strong dynamics and the diminishing cloud cover?

Fearing the cap was going to inhibit storms from forming further south, and having used up my paltry 30 minutes or so of internet access time, I left Albert Lea and headed north on I35. As I headed north I began to rule out the western WI warm front since all of the cloud cover with the morning/early afternoon rain was reducing the potential instability. The warm front to my north was too far away to catch as it was also heading northward, and storms forming along it would be heading away from me and into chaser-unfriendly terrain. My only option was to stop and see if the situation out west in SD warranted going after. I stopped in Owatonna, MN to try to find the library for internet access. After finally asking a gas station attendant where the library was, I pulled into the Owatonna public library in the late 3:00 hour. Struggling to navigate the windows on a Mac, which I have never used for viewing the internet before, I saw that it was nearly clear in southwest MN and that instability was increasing with temperatures rising through the 80's and dewpoints in the low to mid 70's. There was also a pre-frontal surface trough in far eastern SD with towering cumulus forming along it. Strong speed windshear was already in place with some uncertainty as to whether a derecho would form from the initial storms that developed. I decided to go for it. I would be coming back east with the storms until dark anyway so that would reduce my "long drive back home" somewhat. Based on the southern extent of the towering cumulus along the pre-frontal trough, I determined a westward course on US 14 right out of Owatonna. I left the library at about 4:40 pm and headed west.

I soon made it into the sunshine and warmth. I would continue west until I encountered storms. It was time to monitor Weather Radio for watch/warning/conditions information. As I neared New Ulm, MN I noticed cloudiness from storms. I was pleased to notice that it didn't look like the storms were lining out. They were still discrete. As I was heading toward the distant storms, Weather Radio alerted me to a Severe Thunderstorm Warning for the Marshall/Redwood Falls storm. That was intriguing, but I could also tell that there was a storm to my southwest with an impressive anvil. If this storm were to be severe then I would much rather chase this southern of the 2 storms. I changed frequencies on the Weather Radio to try to find out information on this southern storm. When I found a station for that area I soon was alerted to the tornado warning for the Marshall/Redwood Falls storm. I was still 30 miles from that storm but figured there could be more action with the storm after I intercepted it. I charted a course to take me north on US 71 then west on the grid of roads when it seemed suitable. But soon after that warning, a Severe Thunderstorm Warning was issued for Cottonwood County and the southern cell. I made a quick decision to go after that storm even though I could see the rock hard, slightly tilted updraft of the northern storm through a small opening in the low clouds. I headed south on MN 258, just east of Springfield. I headed south and west on the grid of roads and was near the eastern border of Cottonwood County when the Warning was upgraded to Tornado. I was too far away from the action zone, with some precipitation in the way, for me to see the initial tornadoes with this storm. I was careful to get far enough south to miss the hail core. As I did this, the updraft area at the SSW edge of the storm passed overhead. This is the area of the storm where the tornadoes had formed and would form. The "chase" was on!

For the next 2 hours I would be jogging north and east on the occasional paved, but mostly compacted dirt/gravel, roads in rural southwestern Minnesota. I never got rained on much as the strong windshear was carrying the precipitation to the NNE of the updraft region, and I surely wasn't going to head there now that I was moving with the updraft region. The only time I got into anything more than sprinkles was 20 to 15 minutes before the tornado formed. This was the precipitation produced by the updraft region that produced the beautiful tornado near St. James. Four minutes before the tornado formed I was nearly under the updraft and was looking up at the updraft and a rotating buldge below cloudbase. It began to move away from me so I moved east and went past a north/south road. Just down the road I was on I saw a sign saying the road turned to the south and I knew I didn't want that so I turned around and went back to the north/south road. As I turned the corner I saw the beginning ground swirl of the tornado in the treeline break where the road went through!