August 15, 2020 Storms
Northern Minnesota
Moisture had mostly been swept out by yesterday's cold front, but there was a little bit returning as another mid-level shortwave trough would turn the low-level winds back to the south. It was getting late in the season, and I (strangely) had no commitments, so I decided to see what I could see. Convection-allowing models showed storms developing in northwestern Minnesota and moving east towards Koochiching and Itasca Counties later in the evening.
I headed out in the mid-late afternoon and started west towards Bemidji. I was not sure whether I wanted to head north from there or to continue west. There were some cumulus fields, and I did not know which areas would develop first. There was a small storm near or north of Fargo (or maybe it was closer to Grand Forks) that I recall had my attention, but I did not want to get that far south, and I had another cumulus field to my west as I drove west on Highway 2 toward Cass Lake. This cumulus field grew to the point that I decided to turn north toward Pennington.
Just beyond Pennington, I ran into road construction. The road was closed, so I would have to find a different route. I must not have charged up before leaving home, because I decided to stop to charge when I got to Bemidji. I did not have much to chase at that point, anyway. The storms were struggling, and it was a good time to wait it out. That cell near the Red River had dissipated by this point.
Eventually, a healthier updraft took root to my north, and I had a pretty good charge, so I decided to drive up U.S. 71 toward it. It really did not develop into a strong storm, so I decided to stop at the Blackduck charging station and wait for a bit. I hooked up there to 9 kW power. That was nice for a J1772.
It was now getting close to sunset, and the storm finally started to look a bit healthier. I drove farther up 71 and took some pictures as the setting sun illuminated it in orange hues. The storm was moving into the bogs between State Highway 72 and U.S. Highway 71. I would not be able to chase it, and it was getting dark, anyway. I decided to target a pair of small storms to my northwest that were moving toward Highway 72.
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| A small storm at sunset viewed from near Blackduck, Minnesota. |
This brought me to the Big Bog State Recreation Area and the beach at Waskish. I stopped there and took a bunch of photos of the storms, which were moving over Upper Red Lake (they were actually west of the lake at this point, but from my perspective, they were over the lake). These were clearly left-moving LP storms, and they looked interesting for a bit, but they soon disspated. Other storms then developed and also moved over the lake, so I drove across the street to charge the car and ran back and set up a time lapse as the twilight faded. Interestingly, there was a couple there who had driven up from St. Cloud (they taught at St. Cloud State University) to photograph the Milky Way from a dark sky location. The storms were rather dissipointing to them since they blocked view of the Milky Way just as it would have come into view. They gave up and went back to their campsite, but I kept shooting, and the storms dissipated, revealing the Milky Way. I ran my time lapse until the clouds had mostly all dissipated and then headed home so I could get to sleep around 1:00 AM.
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| A shrinking, left-moving LP storm over Upper Red Lake. |
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| Another storm moves by after sunset. |
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| Cropped version of the above picture. |
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| Milky Way around 11:00 PM. |
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| Storm Chase Route. |
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