July 11th, 2008
Central Minnesota (Kandiyohi, Meeker and McLeod Counties)
Tornadic Supercell
Tadd Parris

Sat in Waconia debating on going out all afternoon because I worked a night shift at 11pm.  Took off at 5:15pm and made it to the Cosmos area at 6:31 at Hwy 7 and Cty Rd 1.  While driving to my first stop I witnessed a clear slot then a column of debris which I determined after a few minutes to be a tornado.  Since I was driving and trying to find a good location to park and take some pics, used the time to call in the tornado to the the NWS.  Wish I would have tried to take some pics because it took some time to find a spot and ended up with little to show for the tornado.  Still not sure if I was witnessing the Wilmar tornado or another possible tornado. 
 

These few images are all I have of what I saw of the tornado.  Sad to saw the focus and position really sucked.	The tornado is the column in the center of the picture, the darker area to the right I have no idea what it is.	Larger scan of the storm with a better focus.  Tornado is over the tree line to the right of the white topped silo.  The junk to the right side is inflow which had a nice beavers tail to it.

Just seconds later another area of rotation started right to my west.  Never called this one in, wanted to wait and see what would occur first.	Now the second storm to the SW started to converge on this clear slot area and this rotation.	Still had rotation around this lowering, but you could tell the storm was loosing the battle against the new storm.

Looking pretty nice at this point and would produce some little funnel look alikes.	you can see the base of the storm and the striations around this area of rotation.	Starting to produce a little funnel.
Nice wall cloud with funnel in the center and had decent rotation.  Sitting 4miles SW of Cosmos.	Made a quick stop during my reposition to capture this still of what happened in the clear slot.  Looked like something was touching the ground but was so much scud I couldn't be certain.  Really looks like it was a tornado and a wall cloud, time was 7:13pm 5mi NW of Hutchinson.

After seeing the storms converging into a line I darted back East to Hutchinson and stopped at the airport.

 

Looking to the north towards Hutchinson at the storms bow out.		Looking to the W at the very southern edge of the storms which actually had some rotation, but this whole shelf produced some intense rotation.
Shelf starting to really form just to my N.	Nice rays of light behind the shelf.	Inside the whales mouth of the storm.

Back home in Waconia for a perfect sunset.	Best mammatus cloud I have ever shot.	Getting gas for work at Kwik Trips.
In Chanhassen getting some of that awesome lightning the storm produced.	I liked this shot with the cloud to ground bolt and a car passing by.	Wonderful.

Really wanted those car lights with the lightning but the brightness I think really messed up my exposure.		I liked this pic with the car half way through the image.