6 20 08 Minnesota storms and the driveway is done...again

Timed sealing the cracks on the driveway before seal coating it with a round of pretty robust little storms yesterday afternoon. Kept watching the boundary eeking its way into western MN near the hump where the winds were a little better. By early afternoon a small cu field developed and some light showers soon followed. As they moved east/southeast into better instability and some better shear, a decent multicell cluster made their way into eastern Kandiyohi county moving southeast. Parked myself north of Howard Lake, MN and tried to pick the best looking one as they came towards me.


One cell developed a pretty fair forward flank updraft base with the core falling more north of it so decided to stick with this one. As I neared Buffalo, a nice gustnado formed under the base as the line of cell began to rapidly implode sending a gust front rocketing off to the southeast.


This gustnado lasted about 10 minutes and churned itself off to the east. Although I never let it overtake me, I did measure a wind gust of 47.5mph with it as the most vigorous area stayed just to my north. Called MPX and let Karen know who issued a special weather statement as it merged with the gust front and headed towards the lakes on the west side of the Minneapolis metro area.


As I poked around where the gust from and gustnado merged, I found a group of town homes with some shingle damage and some 3"- 4" tree limbs down. I stopped and talked to some kids who were playing when the gust hit. They showed me their tampoline which was tossed about 50 feet and said some type of light fixture up the street was also blown down.

One last look off to the east at the backside of the storms as they moved off to the east towards the Minneapolis metro area.

And I still managed to get the driveway done.