2026--Day 7

Rough, early start.  The hotel left a bit to be desired, as the microwave would beep every time the power came back on.  Did I mention that the power went out a few times?  That QLCS found us around 2 am and treated my semi-comatose (behind) to a beautiful light show that I could just have done without.  But here we are, on our way to Rochester...Minnesota.  I'm going to ask Casey to drop me off at Mayo for a blood transfusion.  

Looks like a slight change in plans.  We did cross the Red River into Minnesota, passing through St. Cloud (but not stopping, sadly), and are heading south around Minneapolis for Iowa.

Lots of action, as it turns out.  Lots of tornadic storms, both radar-indicated and actually spotted.  The storms were moving faster than expected, and were difficult to chase effectively.  It required us to make decisions about which storms would be worth engaging, and that eventually brought us to northern Missouri. 

Lots of beautiful cloud structures (including wall clouds), but due to the HP nature of the supercells, we didn't see any funnels, but at one point we were  thisclose to the rotation (check the radar images with the red tornado warning box, and note our location by the blue circle).  We were not in real danger, but it was a bit closer than might normally be comfortable. 

The day ended with the group saying farewell to the film crew, who were leaving for Chicago for a Thursday morning flight.  They found themselves less than 10 miles from a tornado in Springfield, IL.  I hope they got footage. 

After a lengthy wait for food at the first combination IHOP/Applebee's (IHOPlbee's?) I've ever seen (along with what looked like tropical wind and rain right over us), we finally landed in Hannibal, MO for the night.  Final results: five states, plenty of thunderstorms (including at least one tornadic HP supercell), and 760 miles of driving, the single greatest one-day total, quite possibly in any chase I've been on.  3,683 miles total.  Also quite possibly the most exciting chase day I've been on; I'm absolutely certain the students will never forget it.  Here's the summary of severe events today.