Getting to the supercell a little later than desired, but we are getting there as the first tornado is forming. We are about to pull off and shoot pictures of the tornado from a distance.

We finally find a distant hill to pull over on and snap shots of the fine tornado. It was a pretty intense tornado visually. We are looking Southwest. The tornado is getting ready to cross I-90 soon (west of Sioux Falls).

Zoomed all the way out. You can see we were not very close, but we were able to get some structure that went along with the whole tornado scene.

Zoomed in.

Constrasted a little to show debris cloud.

Across I-90 now, about to dissipate.

Same image as before, but touched up by Allan Detrich.

Rope out color contrasted due to poor contrast.

Racing northeastward to keep ahead of the storm. Supercell structure from the moving car.

Continuing our long, fast trip with the supercell towards the northeast.

This storm had fantastic inflow, including inflow bands shown here.

Tornadogenesis! In this RFD cut, you could see mist/precip falling through the RFD's right-hand side (to the right of the obvious heavier precipitation), which was leading to a horizontal vortex on the right-hand side of the clear slot. This would soon bend down through vortex tilting by the downdraft and become a short-lived, but intense tornado. This was one of those "you had to be there" or "Dangit! Why didn't I have a video camera?!" moments. Definitely a highlight of my chase career.

You can see the funnel forms very quickly (thanks to vortex stretching, I'm assuming) as the horizontal vortex tube is gently tipped. Click on the image to see the developing funnel closer.

Continued development.

This funnel kept getting prettier. Check out the sunlight hitting the funnel in the middle.

Touchdown. Note the horizontal vortex tube is still connected to the tornado.

Debris starting to be picked up. Unfortunately this caused damage to a farm.

150 hogs were apparently homeless after this incident.

Dissipation comes quickly.

Dissipation stage. Photo touched up by Allan Detrich.

We follow the storm much longer. This funnel quickly formed and nearly touched down (or maybe did?). By the time I got a shot set up, it was dissipating, so nothing really special here.

In another mesocyclone occlusion, there was a funnel formation. We could not confirm touchdown on this funnel (which was obviously rotating). I color contrasted this image, but I'm still not convinced one way or the other. Please e-mail if you have more information on this image. This is just east of the Minnesota border, looking northwest.

More color contrasted perspectives on it. You could visually see the funnel rotating at a decent clip, but you couldn't see if anything was really going on at the ground due to precipitation/haze/bad lighting. Anyway, convincing, eh? Not completely yet. I need more information.

It's definitely a funnel. But touching?

More tries at discerning what the truth is. All I know is that if this really was a tornado, it wasn't a satisfactory experience. I guess I'll stick with funnel until I know more.

Driving along at a good clip, I get a shot of the towering cumulus experiencing the spectacular shear this day. The sign indicating the preferred mode of supercell movement was an accident.

Storm seems tornadic still (near Florence, MN), but it is losing our interest as it seems poised to drag us to Minneapolis. We will finally depart in a while since the storm becomes visually less pleasing and because a spectacular supercell is about to surprise us to our southwest (on our way home)!

Our storm is looking more HP with this very nice deep, convective arc forming off an older RFD.

Winged chasers depart the storm before we do. One last small funnel cloud forms, but it is not worth showing given that there are already too many pictures on this web page.

We depart the storm too.

There was a whole train of supercells following the leading tornadic one, which all greeted us as we started to meander southwestward. This is the one immediately behind the tornadic one. This one looked visually like it suffered a little from the precip cooled air of the leading storm, but who knows.

My chase partners in the midst of running me over with the car.

Random towers all over seemed to obtain photogenic features.

We thought the day was over now!

This supercell surprise on our way back was supernatural. Icing on the cake.

Breathtaking. Thunder was rumbling constantly. Lightning continued to cascade throughout the mesocyclone and precipitation region.

The supercell moves northeastward.

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