Grand Forks/Polk Counties Chase - 6-8-2020

Wall Cloud

What a chase day!

It started off with me leaving out of Fargo and headed north towards Grand Forks.  Originally, I was going to head north and then west to try to get to the storms in far western Barnes County.

Just as I was leaving Fargo. 

Very quickly after the storms went up, they started to rotate and before we knew it, there was a tornado warning.  I got up to Thompson I headed west and very quickly noted a wall cloud.  At first I couldn't tell if it was rotating, and then I was able to tell that it was, and as I got closer, it was cranking really hard.

Screencap from my dashcam. 

Quick camera shot out my window. 

Here's another screencap from closer to Emerado:

Note the big RFD cut - this can either help or be a hindrance to tornadogenesis.

I then had to make a choice.  The storm was very quickly going to be moving out of North Dakota and into Minnesota.  I also know my options for getting across the river are limited, and so I made a choice, and I dropped the storm as it got close to the airort and headed east and made the river crossing into Minnesota.

Once I made it info Minnesota, I was treated with quite a sight.

What a wall cloud! 

Here is some video I shot of the that wall cloud.

Another shot of the wall cloud with the RFD punch. 

After a few minutes, the wall cloud started to dissipate, but I was still left with some awesome picture opportunities:

Then, one more shot as the storm started to fade away:

Later on, the storm found the boundary again and became tornado warned, but by this time it was getting to the far northern reaches of the valley and I was well on my way home. 

As I was digging through the pictures on my camera, I realized I hardly blogged at all last year, and I am hoping to blog quite a bit more this year, and then do some blasts from the past from my previous years.  (Basically, I need to get caught up from hardly doing any chase blogs from last year!)  Hopefully I am able to get caught up more over the next few weeks.

Until next time!