7/18/2006 01:09:00 PM|W|P|Bob Hall|W|P|On July 18th 1986 I chased to intercept my first tornado in a northern suburb of Minneapolis, MN. I didn’t have any inkling to chase for the next fourteen years. I was working in a camera shop that had a NOAA weather radio as they were called at the time. The radio went off and indicated the funnel was about 8 miles from our location. The next warning put it several miles closer and now was a Tornado. The Assistant Manager, Mike Sorensen and I borrowed some of the better camera equipment, a super 8 mm film camera, and a couple of handfuls of film. We jumped in his truck and quickly intercepted a high based rope tornado. This was the easiest chase I’ve ever had. The tornado lasted about 30 minutes traversed about 15 miles in a metro area and the storm literally seemed to dodge houses. This tornado was seen by tens of thousands of people. It is somewhat historic in that a TV (KARE) helicopter who was out on an unrelated story had the presence to point a camera at it and feed it live. Everyone has seen this video and 20 years ago it was inconceivable to have live helicopter intercept video. The pilot flew in Viet Nam and was probably as qualified to do this as anyone. KARE is going to air a piece on the 10:00PM News tonight. Hopefully they will have an internet stream. Somewhere I have the photos, I’ll have to dig them out for the 25th anniversary. From the KARE Website: It was 20 years ago today that television history was made at KARE TV when the Sky 11 helicopter was en-route to an unrelated story and came upon a developing tornado over the northern Metro. The weather on July 18, 1986 was hot and very humid with late afternoon Metro temperatures in the low 90s and dew point temperatures in the low to mid 70s. During the late afternoon an isolated thunderstorm fired up along a boundary over the north Metro - the boundary was dividing much drier air from the humid air over the Metro. The thunderstorm quickly intensified and produced a tornado in Brooklyn Park - the tornado moved east along the Coon Rapids/Fridley border and for about 30 minutes ripped up trees in the Springbrook Nature Park. Even thought the tornado was in a high urban area it stayed mainly in the nature park area so most of the damage was done to trees and amazingly no one was injured in the F2 tornado (winds over 150 mph ). Watch the KARE 11 Extra tonight at 10 P.M. ( July 18 ) and again Wednesday at 5 A.M. ( July 19 ) to see the amazing video of the 1986 KARE 11 helicopter tornado.|W|P|115324638299504482|W|P|Twenty Years of Chasing (kind of)|W|P|ChaseHelp@gmail.com