About 15 minutes later, Bob called again to report initiating cells over Redwood Falls and New Ulm, about 20 miles north west of our location. We could see the towers begin to form from the airport. So after a gas up we headed north towards St. Peter to intercept the cells which were traveling ENE. We continued past St. Peter to La Sueur, then drifted west towards Gaylord on HWY 19. We held that position for 45 to 60 minutes, as we had great visibility of the storms to our north and the approaching southern storms.

After awhile, the storm to our north finally started to get organized and show evidence of inflow and rotation. We could even see tiny funnels swirling out of a large, detached piece of scud. At the last minute, we decided to follow this storm instead of targeting the storms further south, so we followed HWY 19 east past 169 all the way to Northfield. Along the way, we saw several brief spin ups, most notably, a large rotating dust plume (1/8 to 1/4 mile wide) beneath the wall cloud while passing through New Prague. But these tornadoes quickly dissipated.

Finally, just as we were approaching Northfield, we saw the condensation funnel. Unfortunately, our vision was obscured by the city buildings and the tornado was rain-wrapped. By the time we cleared the city, there was no funnel left. But then began our trek into the tornado's damage path. Large trees and farm equipment were strewn along the road. Some houses were completely collapsed. We literally had to swerve out of the way of debris on the road as we were chasing. Though this sounds very dangerous, we were most concerned with getting out of the damage path, which only stretched about 1/2 mile on HWY 19.

After clearing the damage path, we continued following the wall cloud east of Cannon Falls, where the power was out and some more trees were down. The winds were pounding us so hard that at one point I thought the funnel was dropping right on us. In fact, when Doug went to open his car door, the winds ripped it open so hard it actually bent the door frame.

After about 8:30 we abandoned the storm so we could return to Northfield and get more footage of the storm damage. By the time we returned, police had blocked off most of the area.

All in all, it was an excellent chase day. It's hard to believe this all took place so close to home (has the MN curse lifted?). Special thanks to Bob Conzemius and Chris Peterson for helping vector me to the storm, and to Doug for being persistent.