Storm chaser Aaron Jayjack reports live from Iowa after a day of chasing severe storms through the Upper Midwest.
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00:00Storm chaser Aaron Jayjack joins us now there.
00:02Aaron, you've been kind of straddling the Iowa-Minnesota line with some pretty nasty storms here.
00:07It's a photogenic cell with a beautiful sunset kind of interacting with that cloud cover.
00:14But this is a nasty supercell behind you there, or at least a nasty storm.
00:18So how's it going out there right now?
00:23Yeah, those are the storms that have been tornado-worn, severe-worn, going through southern Minnesota.
00:27This is them back here, back behind me.
00:30We're looking down this long line of updrafts, storms trying to get together.
00:35You mentioned the sunset. We do have that sunset back behind me here.
00:39This stretches all the way to the south, so I've been backed off from the storms to try and get into this warmer air.
00:46You can see the strong, probably hard to hear me, with the strong surface winds here rushing out of the south,
00:51bringing that warm, moist air up to these potential storms.
00:54So I drop down here to the southern end to see if the southern end, the tail end, Charlie, if you will, portion of the storm system,
01:01will produce any kind of supercells, potentially tornadoes down here.
01:04Because we do still have a tornado watch.
01:06In fact, tornado watch in effect here and all the way to the south.
01:09I'm still well north of Des Moines.
01:11That tornado watch is down there in Des Moines and southern Iowa.
01:14So keeping an eye on the southern part of the storm system here.
01:17Also, I am on my way, as I'm chasing, also on my way for tomorrow, another threat down in Oklahoma and Texas to be tracking.
01:26So right now, tracking these storms here in Iowa, Minnesota, as they race off to the east.
01:31Tornado watch is still in effect.
01:32So make sure you're keeping an eye on the weather this evening.
01:35Back to you.
01:36And Aaron, earlier we've seen some hail up to the size of golf balls in places like the Emmett County area,
01:43other cells that have passed to the north.
01:44I know that when you were closing in on the cell near Keister, we had a funnel cloud briefly spotted there.
01:54But have you seen anything alarming among these storms?
01:57Has it mainly been a hail and wind producer to this point here, as far as you're aware?
02:05In fact, I would go as far as only saying mainly a wind producer right now.
02:10I haven't gotten into any of the cores of the storms.
02:12I'm sure there is some hail in there, and I'm not sure how big that hail is.
02:16But I haven't actually run into any of the hail.
02:19And generally, when I'm chasing these storms, even getting close to the updrafts, I'll generally, if it is a storm that's going to be producing big hail,
02:25even out away from the rain, away from the core, you'll still be getting hit by hail.
02:29And I haven't been actually hit by any hail at all today.
02:32So it's definitely been, from my perspective, a big wind event so far.
02:36Thankfully, as I mentioned, I think that cold outflow from the storms is surging out and undercutting these storms before they can produce tornadoes
02:43and kind of throttling back that tornado potential this evening.
02:46So good news for that.
02:48But still, you know, we are in those tornado watches.
02:50We should keep an eye.
02:51You should keep an eye on the storms this evening.
02:53Back to you.
02:53All right, Aaron, we appreciate your report there.
02:55And, again, you're looking into this cell here from Aaron's perspective near Algana and the Kosovo County, Iowa,
03:02Hancock County, Iowa, and Winnebago County severe thunderstorm warnings in effect until 8 p.m.
03:07And let's go up to Rochester, Minnesota.
03:09Here we've got some heavy rain.
03:11And Rochester has been in that conversation about severe weather for quite some time.
03:15And right now we have a strong thunderstorm moving in.
03:18Lots of lightning out there.
03:19Look at the lightning there from the Rochester, Minnesota DOT camp.
03:2373 degrees.
03:25And you can see, if you look closely left of center near the lower part of the screen, the raindrops, lots of rain coming down.
03:31You can really see that highlighted by one of the traffic lights in the foreground.
03:36So nasty driving weather.
03:38And just to make the point here, you saw multiple flashes in that, what, 15-second window.
03:42We had that camera up maybe 20 seconds.
03:44Look at all the lightning here.
03:45Tremendous amount of lightning.
03:46I'm going to pull the map out.
03:47But thankfully, at this point, no severe thunderstorm warnings in effect for Rochester or Austin or Albert Lee.
03:55Earlier we did have some severe thunderstorm warnings in effect for Albert Lee.
03:58But this area here along the I-90, I-35 stretch and then running along and parallel to Interstate 90, strong thunderstorms.
04:07Certainly they're going to get your attention.
04:09They could lead to localized flash flooding, street flooding, nasty travel weather, tremendous amounts of lightning.
04:13Not quite severe in all cases.