Decided on Decorah, IA as the target, since East-Central Iowa's updated models had very small amounts coming down. Boy was it a PERFECT choice Tim made on that one.
Route: 105 miles
He picked me up at about 10:45am on Monday. Took it slow since the roads were getting a little slick, started encountering some ZR just north of Independence, and stopped off in Oelwein for a quick snack.
Just south of Eldorado, IA @ 1:36PM, hitting some rain
Going through Calmar, IA @ 1:49PM 13min later, frozen solid.
Got to Decorah at about 2:30, decided to grab a motel room and wander around town to get to know the way of the land, then went downtown for our first cut-in shot for the station.
Downtown Decorah @ 4:00PM
Went around town for a while, sunset came quick and the snowfall started to pick up.
Downtown @ 5:15PM
Back at motel room to grab tapes and batteries, 6:40PM, snow starting to coming down pretty well
Had a freaking AWESOME dinner here at The Oaks. Probably the best restaurant steaks both Tim and I have ever had. If anyone ends up in Decorah and wants some good dinner, you better go here. 8:19PM
Back on the road, going west on HWY 9 on the south outskirts of town, 8:30PM. The headlights up there was actually a police car on the side of the road where a car had slid off the road, went down a 6ft embankment. Occupants were fine and the towing coming was there shortly to pull them out.
Setting up for another liveshot for the station, sitting in a upper parking lot at Luther College on the West side of Decorah, snow falling pretty heavily now, had about 5-6 inches at this point, 10:00PM
We finished up the 10PM show back at The Oaks and setup a final shot for the show, then went in and watched them take our shot! =] 10:30PM, overlooking the intersection of HWY 9 and Short St. on the southside of Decorah.
In the bar, there's our shot! =]
Went back to the motel and caught a bit of sleep, both Tim and I were experiencing crazy stuff when we closed our eyes, we kept seeing "snow" like sights when we closed our eyes =P. We got maybe 4 hours of sleep until we had to get back up and get ready for our morning show at 5AM.
Back in downtown Decorah, and they were in full force clearing the snow. They 2 road graders along with another gathering the snow in the center of the streets, and two wheel loaders scooping the snow up, with about 10 dumptrucks convoying in and out to get the snow out of town. They don't mess around here man.
Road grader plowing, 6:25AM Tuesday morning
The windrows they created, ready for pickup 6:35AM
We stayed downtown for anoter hour or so to get our morning show shots and phoners in, and decided to go back to the motel and pack up to head back.
Man this was hilarious, he couldn't have gotten that any plate any more correct =] 8:42AM
Got on the road about 10min later, roads outside of town were pretty iced over, temps were still in the low 20s. This was heading into Maynard, IA. at this point winds were coming out of the north, was picking up some pretty good drifting snow. 9:21AM
Ended up doing out final liveshot for the show just north of Oelwein, IA. This was also my final shot for the chase. All in all it was a good storm to cover, we not only got good video and shots, but having the live streaming video gave our station a great tool to show the people exactly how the roads were before they headed out for work that morning. This is going to be great for us to use come storm chasing season.
See you all next chase,
Aaron
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