The Setup
A weak cold front had come through much of Minnesota following yesterday's severe weather episode. This front had gotten into southeastern Minnesota, but it was washing out a bit with the wind shift along the front becoming much weaker. In the morning, I presumed this would be a down day since models did not show any substantial convection in Minnesota. My goal, therefore, was to get south towards the Day 2 target somewhere in southern Minnesota or northern Iowa. However, once we got out of lunch at the Lion's Tap in Chaska, it looked like storms might develop to the southeast.
The Chase
We drove to Owatonna and turned east from there. Some showers had developed over the area, and a thunderstorm was located just west of Wabasha. If we drove east, we would have a better chance of intercepting a storm. The SPC issued a severe thunderstorm watch for far southeastern Minnesota into western Wisconsin.
We continued east, but the storms never fully materialized. One or two stronger storms formed just west of the Mississippi River and crossed eastward into Wisconsin. Storms farther east in Wisconsin became warned, but there wasn't much interesting close to us except for occasional cumulus growing into showers (maybe a rumble of thunder, too, but there wasn't much if any). We ended up in Plainview, Minnesota where we stopped to allow one of our overseas guests to sample Dairy Queen.
Having had our fill of soft-serve ice cream, we decided to do a quick tour into Wisconsin and to see a lock and dam on the Mississippi River as long as we were so close. We crossed the river at Wabasha, and we got out of the van in the backwater area just into Wisconsin. It was incredibly humid there. My guess is the dewpoint was over 80 degrees. A shower had just passed, so water was evaporating off the pavement, adding to the humidity. We crossed back into Wabasha then drove to Lock and Dam Number 5. We looked at the lock for a bit then put our hotel in Austin, MN in Google Maps and drove there.
Wrap-up
Overall, it was a day of low expectations. These expectations were generally met, and we still had some showers or storms to chase. We got to visit southeastern Minnesota, which I hadn't seen in a long time..