Tornados in Iowa, May 22, 2004

Two of our sons Jaimie, Jared and I left Elk River, MN about 1:30PM on Saturday headed for Des Moines, IA. With a late start we decided that would be far enough for us. We would get to Des Moines and let the storms come to us. As it turned out, the towers were just starting as we approached the North side of town on I35. We fueled up in Urbandale on the West side of town just as the NWS was putting up their first warnings for Boone and Story counties to the North of the city. I called John Wetter our Now Caster in Minnesota. He gave me a quick run down on the cells and told me to pick one and go for it. We decided to head West towards Stuart, IA which is just North of I80 about 40 miles West of Des Moines. The NWS had a possible tornado in a severe storm to the SW of Stuart in Adair county.

We exited I80 and turned South at Earlham taking P57. We could see a strong cell developing to our West. After dropping South for about 3-4 miles we found an E/W gravel rode and turned West onto it. Within less than 10 minutes we spotted our first funnel cloud to our NW. As we proceeded West we stopped and saw a large tornado on the ground about 2-3 miles to our NW. We were out of range for my ham radio to contact the NWS so I called in a report to them on my cell phone. This storm cell weakened and the tornado lifted after about 4-5 minutes. We then began to follow this cell East and North and watch in produce several funnels and later saw our second tornado on the ground just South of Adel in Dallas county. By the time we got to the Adel area it was getting too dark to safely follow the cells further North. After the cell moved further North we drove East on Hwy 6 from Adel to I35 and had dinner at the Flying J truck stop. Jaimie, being a trucker, made that recommendation.

Here is a radar loop that John saved of this event.

We finished dinner about 10PM, got back in the Jeep and fired up the laptop to check the radar. The line of severe cells was now just to the North of Des Moines and we were on the warm side. To get home we needed to drive through the cells, which were putting out very heavy rain now. I talked to the NWS and got a local update from them. I could see a couple cells just to the West of I35 on the North side of Des Moines moving to the East. After talking to the NWS I decided our best bet was to try to time a drive between the cells as the first one passed to the East of I35. We drove through some moderate rain and saw a terrific light show, but made it to the North side of the cells without and hail or other problems. For the next 2-3 hours we had a fantastic light show as the storm changed from CG to CC bursts.

We made it home about 3:30AM Sunday morning after stopping on I35 W near the Metro Dome in Mpls to help at a 3 car crash on the curve where I35 W and I94 split off. No serious injuries but they were in a very bad location.

Well that's about it. We did about 658 miles in about 14 hours. I enjoyed spending time with my boys and I think they had a good time too. Our daughter Joanna was bummed that she couldn't join us this time. I look forward to a few more chases this year. I will continue to pray that these storms cause minimal damage and hope that I can do my part to help get warnings out to people living in the effected areas. My special thanks again to John Wetter and others in the chaser community here in Minnesota for all you folks do to help save lives.

Click on any images below for larger picture.

This was taken as we traveled South on I35 in Hamilton county. To the rigth on this photo you can see the South edge of one cloud area.	This photo shows the formation to the South that stritched West to East as far as we could see. This was the developing area of the storms.
Here is the first of several photos of the tornado on the ground that we reported in Adair county.	Jaimie worked on the original photos in Photoshop to add some contrast so we could see these better.
This was about 2-3 miles away from us. For my first encounter with tornados in over 25 years, I wasn't ready to try to get much closer.	Hear the tornado is weakening and will vanish in about another minute.
This first tornado died out after 4-5 minutes and then we watch the wall cloud that it came from for awhile longer before heading North and East.	We only saw the tornado on the ground for a minute or less as we approached the South side of Adel on Hwy 169. This was a funnel from it.

Click Here to view RealVideo of these storms, about 3 1/2 minutes, 1.7MB

Email: Henry Griner

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