A funnel cloud I witnessed on 8/12/2010 and called into the NWS office has officially been listed as an EF0 tornado. I took some pictures of the tornado as it formed and dissipated around 5:30 that day. None of the pictures are particularly awe inspiring or detailed, but I haven't seen any pictures of this tornado online. So I decided to share a few of them.
The clouds began to build and thicken late in the afternoon, and radar showed signatures of small supercells growing in the area. So I left my house and proceeded south on Riverfront Ave. in Mankato. I could see a rain-free base forming southwest of Mankato, so I traveled east on highway 14 and then south on highway 22 out of Mankato and towards Mapleton. I turned west on county road 16 and took a position by a cornfield at the intersection of 16 and T-358. That's when I got a good look at the churning skies. I was about 6 miles SSE from where the tornado hit (reportedly 3 miles WNW of Rapidan, Mn.
The tornado is just forming in the picture above. The rest of the pictures show the tornado's formation and its ending stages.
The next pictures are a little blurry.
By now, the tornado is dying.
That was it for the tornado. It was on the ground for about a tenth of a mile according to the NWS. It kicked up some debris, but I never heard of any damage reports from this storm, which is obviously a good thing.
The skies still were active-looking, so I drove east on 16 across 22 and let the storms come over me. The view in the next picture looks to the NW of my position. The wall cloud of the now-dead tornado is in the center.
Next I turned my camera to the southwest to take a picture of an inviting rain-free base. Nothing came of it.
That was it for this storm in my immediate area.