Coon Rapids Dam

Headed down to Coon Rapids dam to get some Ice Flow Pictures with Emily after visiting San Park.

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Swan Park, Monticello

Decided to do some running around with Emily today. Max and mom were out at a birthday party. Pretty cold outside but Em still wanted to go exploring so we headed up to see the Swans at Monticello. There were a lot of Swans, geese, ducks around, but not nearly the 1000+ count that we heard from the previous year due to a new food management program in place that was suppose to help the swans make the decision to migrate. The program was canceled due to a lot of swans eating lead off the bottom of the river and lakes.

More information on swan park:   http://www.monticellocci.com/

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FieldTrip to LilyDale Park with Max’s class

Headed down to LilyDale regional park on a field trip with Max’s class. The parks nothing like I remember from my younger days when we used to do cave exploration in the area. Now everything looks sealed up, and staying that way.

Lots to look at still. Tons of  fossils and poison ivy to find and some nice hiking trails. A nice day out.

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Blaine, MN Wall Cloud

ere are a couple of pictures. Doesn’t do this cell justice though. Like you guys, I wasn’t even paying attention to the weather until I saw this cell right out my living room. Was a lot nicer looking before it crossed 65, but was still obviously rotating by the time I caught up to it just east of 65 and main street.

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Windom, MN

Headed to Windom with Dean for what we hoped was going to be a big day. We were teased a couple of times with a few towers going up, only to watch them collapse and dry up almost immediately. Thought we were going to get a light show coming home as we watched lightning begin to light up the towers to the south of the cities, but the cloud to cloud became cg and too far below the horizon to see within about 5 minutes.

Day wasn’t a complete loss though. Did get buzzed by a crop duster. Mosquito’s didn’t bother us for the rest of the night…..

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07-10-08 Chaska, MN

Took a long lunch at work to intercept a line of storms coming in from the west. Hail and high winds being the main threats. Made it down to Chaska before the line over ran me. Traffic was a pain, so ended up with the line running over me while I sat in traffic. High winds, a little pea size hail.

07-07-08 Mason City, IA

Drove to Iowa, got as close as the north side of the tornado warned cell that went through Mason City. Cells lined out and started to drift to the SE almost immediatly. Saw lots of flooding. Heard reports of up to 4 inches of rain from one of the cells with lots of road closures just East of Mason City.

Wrote off IA after that and headed back into southern MN. Cu field dried up as I drove north. Kept driving north until I hit the cell moving through Anoka County. Nothing impressive as far as structure. A lot of scud rising into the base and a shelf hanging off the front, but that was about it.

Did get an inch of rain in about 15 minutes from it…. as measured at my house(Blaine), and the porta potties and all the garbage cans were blown around at the NSC. Not sure what the official wind speed measurement is to blow a line of porta potties over. Some brief street flooding.

So….. 350 miles to once again have a cell go through my backyard.

07-31-08 Allison, IA

Really thought we had a chance in IA yesterday. Even though the line died, it didn’t move all that much, so a nice relaxed day yesterday watching cells shoot up and die right over us. Out with Randy and Dean.

Towers begin to head up, bases darken and start to lower, towers collapse within about 10 minutes.

No question where the boundary is today.

This is what made it all worth while. A few roads even got wet.

June 7th, 2008 NE IA Chase, Multiple Tornadic storms

Headed out at 1:30 after a last minute decision. The voices were telling me to head south. The cell in front of Chris’s was crossing 35 as I made it across the border so I went after that one. Looked pretty decent, was warned almost to the Wi border where it collapsed within a couple of scans. A nice wall cloud on it. Never did see any rotation or funnels though.

Dropped back to the cell behind that one which was still tor warned, looked nice on Radar, but looked pretty shelfish from the ground. Let that one go to as the cells were starting to merge together. Punched through the line and headed for home.

Played with streaming again today. Had problems with the connection dropping, but I suspect that had something to do with the fact I was moving in and out of Sprint territory down there.

June 6th, 2008 Twin Cities wind damage

High winds came through, tipped over trees, knocked out boards on my fence, stripped my willow tree of leaves.