A Day I'll Never Forget

On May 19th, 2021, storm chaser Michael Marrero intercepted a total of 5 tornadoes in southern Minnesota. The first tornado he spotted was located southwest of Meriden, Minnesota. He reported the tornado to law enforcement, but it didn't appear to do damage from his vantage point. This tornado was never documented or added to the "outbreak" map that day.

Michael continued north through Meriden and turned east onto a gravel road, where he'd yet again spot another tornado. He yet again reported this tornado while also witnessing another sister funnel, all at the same time. Due to being on the phone with law enforcement, he wasn't able to document the funnels in real time. Locals and other spotters may have different perspectives on these funnels, as it was fairly close to Owatonna, Minnesota.

Michael would continue tracking this storm where he'd meet Zach Folie on the same eastbound gravel road. Zach a few years later began chasing with Michael part time.

Michael turns north to follow the Buick, where he'd later regain the lead, headed north towards the Warsaw area.

He'd see another beautiful cone tornado west of Medford. This tornado could be seen on traffic cameras. Another wedge type funnel would form but later fizzled out before reaching the community of Warsaw.

These storms continued north into the Twin Cities. Multiple news agencies had live converge of this event as it neared populated areas.

Recap from my YouTube Channel:

May 19th, 2021 is a day I'll never forget. A day that started out rather calm turned active quickly. A day that wasn't forecasted to be severe at all.

The first storm produced a tornado a few miles south west of Meriden Minnesota. This guy was a beauty and thankfully short lived. This was first of many tornadoes reported that evening. The tornado roped out after about 3 minuets of life, 20 seconds of ground contact.

Shortly after, another funnel a few miles to the east would appear on the north side of Highway 14. This storm went on to produce two funnels at the same time making ground contact for maybe a minute or two at most. These two funnels danced around in the sky for minuets before saying goodbye. I did my duty again and reported my sightings immediately leaving me with very little footage of these beautiful storms. The tail end of those funnels can be found on my channel.

I continued to track these storms to the northwest through rural Steel and Rice counties and I experienced things I never thought were possible. A cone tornado would form north of Steel County Road 23, and 3 miles north west of Medford Minnesota. As I was driving west bound on 23, the inflow increased drastically, causing a massive pressure drop inside the Cubinator. Little did I know what was really going on... I turned right to head north on 62nd Ave when another funnel formed. This time, a massive wedge. The prior tornado was still spinning to the east while this wedge was forming and rotating like crazy. The cone funnel began to rope out and the wedge continued to spin for a few minutes before dissipating too.

These cells continued off to the north with tornado warnings up the I-35 corridor into the Twin Cities metro.