June 14, 2022 Storms

Itasca and St. Louis Counties

This was a local, after work chase. There was a slight risk of severe storms over parts of northern Minnesota, and a marginal risk in the immediate Grand Rapids area. Storms were moving towards Itasca County at the end of my work day, and given no obligations for the evening, I decided to chase.

SPC Day 1 storm graphic with storm reports.

SPC Day 1 tornado probabilities.

I initially targeted storms moving toward northwestern Itasca County. The significant tornado parameter had values of around 2 or 3, but the storms were not severe-warned. There were some warned storms farther north in Koochiching County. I found the updraft base west of Bigfork on Highway 6.

Storms are developing. Looking west from Highway 6 north of Deer River.

First storm west of Bigfork on Highway 6.

After snapping a few pictures, I decided to drive north and get nice and close to the updraft base as it crossed the road in front of me. This would afford me the best view of anything that might happen underneath the storm. There was a decent wall cloud, perhaps, but there wasn't a lot of interesting motion other than fairly quick movement of the storm base from west to east. The updraft base got east of the road, and I soon found myself in heavy rain. It was time to turn around, take Highway 1 east through Effie, and get back in front.

The journey back to the front of the storms took quite a bit longer than expected. The storms were moving pretty fast, and the highway has a number of north and south deviations east of Effie, so that slowed me down a bit. Eventually, I got back in front and took a quick couple photos. At this point, none of the storms was severe.

Ahead of the line east of Togo.

The initial line of storms weakened a bit, and there were no severe reports, so I decided to work my way back toward home. I went south at Cook and was planning to drive south on U.S. 53 and then home on U.S. 169. Just a few miles south on 53, I found another small storm to play with for a bit, so I took a few photographs (at sunset) before continuing home.

Final storm southeast of Cook.

Here is where I drove.

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