Spring 2011 Grand Finale: A Tornado-fest
NW KS to south-central NEb
20 June 11
SHORT: Food, fishing, baby-bird rescue and a bunch of tornadoes…on final chase day of the vacation and season for us, with three tornadic supercells in northern KS and southern NEb.
LONG: Awakening to a windy, moist, scuddy morning in Alma, NEb, beneath a rip-roaring ENEly low-level jet, Elke and I knew this could be a productive storm day, but had no idea that it would land in the top few of our entire storm-observing careers. Indeed, if you include the calendar day–having witnessed the second of two spectacular, lightning-illuminated supercells after the stroke of midnight (story here), there is no question that his goes down as an all-time top-5-class chase day for either of us.
Pre-storm
After looking at morning charts, I targeted two plays:
1. Mid-day tornado potential in the “bent back” region of the occluding surface frontal zone, W of the dryline and near the surface low. Even by mid-morning, this regime was taking shape in west-central KS and moving directly N toward us, with only some diurnal heating and a storm needed to engage intercept mode.
2. Late-afternoon potential on the nose of the dry punch, near the dryline/warm-frontal triple point, over east-central or SE NEb. This is the regime I had in mind for a couple of days, but forecast backing of flow with height in the midlevels (a harbinger of linear storm modes) had me concerned.
Obviously, given where we were, #1 was a no-brainer as first choice, despite my historically lame fortune with “cold core” supercell regimes. If that option either busted or died out early enough in the afternoon, the rather slow eastward component of the deep-layer cyclone’s motion meant we could blast east, preferably on a road suited to it like I-80, and intercept the dryline storms.
With that strategic concept in mind, and a lack of food options in Alma, we headed for HDE to eat late breakfast/early lunch, then to a nearby city park to bide some time reading (Elke) and fishing (me) before storms went up.
I didn’t get too many casts into the lake because of a sad sight I found underneath a tree: two dead baby robins, blown out of their nests by one of last night’s supercells, and one still alive and shivering with hypothermia. After some deliberation about what to do, we noticed other robins and nests up the tree. Elke, who has a longstanding soft spot for baby birds, warmed the featherless little critter while I shimmied up the tree in search of a suitable nest in which to place the orphan. We got it in a snug nest (albeit alongside a much larger and older baby), hoping its new sibling could keep it warm and the new mama would feed it. Chances are it didn’t survive; but we tried.
First tornadic phase: “Long Island/Stamford” supercell
During the avian-rescue experience, a storm had formed (early, as cold-core storms often do) and quickly had become supercellular near HLC. By the time I got a good radar read on it, the storm already was tornado-warned. Though it was moving our way, we still were in HDE, well to its NNE, so…back S through Alma we went, and across the KS line. Mike U already had seen his festival of tornadoes by the time we caught the storm S of Long Island KS, but it was far from done.
Terrain in the area was somewhat choppy and frustrating to navigate, so we settled for the first decent hilltop view we could get, 3 S of Long Island. The supercell was moving toward the N and NNE at various times, with dark murk inside, a tall precip cascade on its SE (rear-flank) edge, and clear, blue sky to its E (our SE). Surface winds blew from the ENE to NE, as they would throughout the duration of our engagement with this supercell. We and the storm were a little leftward of the track of the surface low!
In the murk–and curiously, in the forward-flank interface region ahead of the main mesocyclone, we saw a small, tightly rotating wall cloud emerge, with a pencil-shaped tornado dangling beneath (photo: as seen and super-enhanced versions).
The tornado lasted about three minutes and dissipated, before a different, seemingly shallow, front-flank mesocirculation started spinning like mad to our W. That planted a dusty multivortex, which also was low-contrast (photo: as seen and super-enhanced versions). Whoa! I had based our intercept positioning, relative to the supercell, on the likely track of the primary mesocyclone, which stuck out eastward from the SE side of the north-moving storm.
By now, I had figured out what was going on, but that didn’t make it any less surreal. Pearls of enhanced rotation were forming and spawning front-flank tornadoes, along a necklace of very rich vorticity characterizing the inflow-outflow interface. A conceptual model of the situation looks something like this 2-D cartoon. Why this supercell was going nuts with front-flank mesocirculations, whilst most others don’t, is a question I’ll leave to the numerical modelers for the time being. In the real world of a storm intercept, this presented a strategic quandary, in that getting closer to the front-flank tornadic necklace also meant getting in the path of a rain-wrapped HP mesocyclone of a fairly fast-moving supercell.
As the second tornado churned northward, in step with storm translation, another suspicious feature caught our attention (Elke actually saw it first). A wide view of the storm (photo: as seen) shows the precip-wrapped, main mesocyclone to the left, and at far right, the dusty multivortex. Right before taking that shot, we spotted a dark, smooth, persistent, and reasonably wide lowering in another area of front-flank rotation, buried somewhat back into a precip-filled notch. That made ground contact, with rapid rotation of cloud material above and around the tapered-barrel shaped tornado. We had two ongoing, plus one that likely was underway in the main mesocyclone but not yet visible. More on that beast later. As for the two we knew, the arrows point to the visible tornadoes in this super-enhanced/zoomed version of the last shot.
We had a peculiar situation at hand.
After a few minutes, we lost sight of the southern front-flank tornado as it buried itself in precip, while the leading one narrowed and proceeded toward the N. We headed N too, crossing the KS/NEb state line about the same time as the leading tornado to our W (photo: as seen and super-enhanced versions).
Once that dissipated, we still had an original, dominant mesocyclone to our SSW, in which we couldn’t see anything thanks to persistent, rotating moat of heavy precip that cloaked the mysterious tempests of danger lurking within. This situation was getting weirder all the time, and was about to become truly bizarre.
I drove through Orleans and a few miles NW on US-136, which angled us closer to the front flank and somewhat in the path of the big meso. Lo and behold, just ahead of the rain-wrapped main meso, a tall, skinny, dusty tornado came into view to our WSW (photo: as seen and super-enhanced versions). This definitely was separate from the previous tornado, and probably just S of the KS/NEb state line. Meanwhile, a new and relatively robust shear-zone updraft to our NW (separate from the dissipated dusty tornado #2) started spinning frantically, and beneath a shallow, bowl-shaped and rapidly rotating lowering, spun up another short-lived, dusty tornado (photo: as seen and super-enhanced versions)! After the latter tornado dissipated, the prior, dusty tube seemed to spin down gradually instead of roping out, as if it simply lost its will to rotate.
Whither the main meso? At long last, we started seeing the answer as a rapidly rotating, nearly ground-to-anvil column of rain and hail churned toward us. Something very menacing, dangerous and unsavory began to appear from within the whirling dungeon of heavy precip–a big fat tornado (photo: as seen and super-enhanced versions). Look behind and above the tree row. I think what we’re seeing here is not just the rain-wrapped low levels of the tornado (dark wedge below cloud base, with helical scud coiling about).
Also, note the convective column containing the tornadic circulation (and not much larger in width than the visible tornado down low!) bending above and to the right. This is NWward with height on a N-moving storm, looking SW. [Conceptually, turn your usual NE-tilt on an E-moving storm leftward 90 deg as in the 2-D cartoon ]. In essence, you’re seeing the tornado-cyclone from ground into the mid-upper levels of the storm, visually. Yes, it was convective-looking, but corkscrewing pretty fast visually. Alas, even the mid-upper part didn’t shed its cloak of rotating rain curtains for very long; mostly it had been a bear’s cage from ground almost to anvil, for much of this storm’s lifespan in my view. I’m glad the curtains parted just long enough to reveal this fascinating deep-layer structure–and of course the hefty hose beneath.
My question: Was this the continuation of the Mr. Umscheid’s wedge from way down by HLC, or a separate tornado? Some shots by Walker Ashley seem to indicate a smaller barrel====>cone tornado earlier in this meso’s lifespan, and farther SW in KS. If so, either
1. Walker;s tornado expanded again to a rain-wrapped wedge shown here, or
2. This was a new one.
Whatever the case, the main-meso tornado likely had been ongoing for a long time, given that we had observed tremendously rotating rain curtains around the area for many minutes. This clearly was a very large, well-formed and mature tornadic vortex by the time we finally could see it. The entire tilted cloud column was rotating rapidly.
Wrapping precip again obscured the tornado within two minutes, or about the time it crossed into Nebraska. Orbiting rain curtains continued around the mesocyclone for several miles N toward Stamford an perhaps beyond, until the entire supercell evaporated from below and died W of HDE.
I read reports of “skipping” tornado paths with this storm in this area, which is bogus on two fronts:
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1. By definition, a tornado cannot “skip”. If it’s not on the ground, it’s not a tornado.
2. Semantics aside, there simply was no “skipping”. The various different tornadoes in this area near the border, lined up similarly, probably gave the illusion of “skipping” of damage.
After the initial storm died, we got fuel in HDE and then couldn’t flank the downshear Elm Creek storm. We knew it was tornadic based on spotter reports and the SRM signature, but it was planted squarely on the highway to our N, near I-80. The first storm had put us out of position to see the business end of the Elm Creek supercell, so we jumped on the Interstate with its 75 mph speed limit and pressed the pedal hard in an eastward run for the second target area.
Second tornadic phase: “Hampton and Bradshaw/Stromsburg” supercells
Visually, a series of deep, glaciating towers to our ENE-E-SE looked reachable and was growing. By the time we passed the HSI/GRI exit, an unbroken wall of dense cores loomed to the E on radar, their convective towers lit by a blend of direct and filtered sunlight. My hope was that, despite the linear mode, a “tail-end Charlie” would roll up toward I-80 after I could penetrate the line and get into the inflow air. Linear storms don’t tend to hurl gorilla hail; so I was at ease with cruising up to the back and shooting through a relative gap.
That’s exactly what we did, except that the southern part of the line was breaking up into more discrete (and disturbingly, rotating) cells right as we started the penetration. We took a pounding from marginally severe hail, gazing southward through precip to see if anything could show up in the nearest area of rotation S of the Interstate. As we cleared precip and a ragged base came into view adjacent to the core, Elke saw a brief needle funnel 4/5 of the way to the ground. That might have been a tornado; though flooded fields precluded appreciable dust generation. No debris was visible beneath.
As we neared the Hampton exit, another core loomed to the SSE, moving N. We continued to press E, getting pounded by still more hail. Clearly the line had broken up into closely-packed supercells and we needed to get out of their way! A few minutes after we cleared the N side of the intensifying precip area, I glanced behind us to see a barrel-shaped, rain-wrapped tornado in the S part of the same core, about to cross the Interstate (photo: as seen and super-enhanced versions). That was a little too close for comfort, though we really had about 5 minutes’ cushion. I pulled off the road, jumped out, and gestured wildly at some westbound traffic not to go that way. Fortunately, they slowed down and pulled aside.
What appeared to be a big, low-visibility and significant tornado (as it turned out to be!) was almost upon the Interstate (photo: as seen and super-enhanced versions), and I was hoping nobody would drive into it. Enough precip wrapped around the tornado that we couldn’t see it with our eyeballs as it crossed I-80 (photo: as seen and super-enhanced versions), though it narrowed somewhat to a stilted stovepipe and became more visible again between I-80 and US-34 (photo: as seen and super-enhanced versions).
The Hampton tornado appeared to hook NNW and move away from us. Our last view of it (photo: as seen and super-enhanced versions) came with a troubling realization: we still were getting peppered with precip, including increasingly large hail! The real tail-end Charlie still hadn’t reached I-80 yet; and indeed, another core was moving overhead with a low base diffusely visible to our SSE. Time to high-tail it east again! As we pondered getting off the Interstate at the Bradshaw exit, Elke looked out and up to see rapid cloud-base rotation nearly overhead, atop that very exit. We kept going!
Behind and slightly leftward of us, the tornado first appeared in the rear-view mirror while driving out from under the meso. A small dust plume spun up just N of I-80. Above that loomed a rotating cone funnel that extended about 1/3 down from cloud base. We zipped a mile or so E, then pulled safely off the road to watch. This tornado was highly visible and quite photogenic, a marvelously sheathed column into which the condensation funnel seemed to poke, spike-like. “Finally,” I thought, “all these tornadoes today and we have a high-contrast specimen!” I said something more coarse, but fortunately, cannot recall precisely what.
Without an immediately available north road, we watched for a few minutes as the tube widened and retreated northward away from us, a wide-angle view revealing more of the tail-end supercell’s swirly updraft structure. Although rather distant, we had the tornado in view all the way through JYR and up US-81 to a point 4 ESE of Polk, where we pulled over briefly to watch it rope out to the WNW. This was our longest continuous view of any of the day’s tornadoes: 18 minutes.
A new lowered base even farther N told me this storm wasn’t through with cyclic tornado production yet. As it was moving N rather quickly, slightly ahead of abeam to port side, the town of Stromsburg and its inevitable slowdown dead ahead, we had to get moving for any hope of seeing the next hose. A few miles S of Stromsburg, we saw the newest and last tornado of our day emerge from the haze, to our NW.
Of course, traffic slowed to a crawl in town, a chain of cars inching N at about half the posted 25 mph speed limit, some slowing down or turning indecisively as if thoroughly bewildered. Townsfolk stood in at least half the yards gazing in various skyward directions, not sheltered, despite the ominous wail of storm sirens. I thought, “They’re safe and don’t realize it yet; but if the tornado were headed into town, we would have multiple casualties amongst all these unprepared and confused citizens”. What I actually said might have been a tad less civilized, so it’s good that I can’t recall that.
By the time we got extricated from Stromsburg and headed N for a few miles, contrast improved enough to pull W half a mile and get a few decent shots, including this one looking NW across a corn field at the stout, grinding vortex. Motion of the ragged cloud base around the top of the visible tornado was impressively speedy. Driving a few more miles N on US-81, we finally got roughly abeam of the tornado again, only to see it rapidly narrow and then rope out.
Just in case the storm would cycle once more, we headed up an unmarked road off the east bend of US-81, in the general direction of Duncan. Alas, the supercell quickly displayed a rain-wrapped, outflow-dominant structure, and would produce no more tornadoes. We turned around to head back to JYR, photograph a couple of elevated cells (looking E and looking N from the S side of JYR), grab a room, and get some celebratory steak dinner before restaurants began to close.
Epilogue
A hearty meal was in order too. During a long storm-intercept day, we successfully had observed at least 8 and perhaps up to 10 tornadoes, from three different supercells, in two separate forecast targets and meteorological regimes. All I can say is, wow…only 3 May 1999 clearly exceeds this for my one-day tornado total. We don’t chase just to see tornadoes–far from it, actually–but you bet we’re appreciative of them for their rarity, uniqueness and power–the dichotomously ironic “Beauty of Atmospheric Violence” that is the title for my storm-photography shows. Best of all, nobody was injured through all the whirling mayhem of the day.
It was an amazing grand finale to an unprecedentedly bountiful 2011 Great Plains severe-storm vacation (and season)!
I had called in several of the tornadoes as soon as safety and cell signals would allow, a few while they still were underway. Within a couple weeks after we returned, I processed the day’s images (before all others from this vacation) and sent an itemized table of tornado times and estimated locations to the affected WFOs, with embedded links to many of the same photos as above. That table includes times, locations and links to the above photos. The tornado log file is in the public domain, and linked here in MS Excel format, freely accessible for anyone interested.
Ice Machine in Yuma, Colorado
Yuma CO, 21 Jun 10
SHORT: Observed 3 supercells ultimately merge into one over Yuma CO — damaging hail, beautiful post-storm skies.
LONG:Join us on this fine, toasty day for a tale of three supercells that became one, the hellish hailstorm that resulted, and a storm-observing couple who chased them.
Elke and I began the day in Sidney with a target area of NE Colorado, in the region of relatively backed low-level flow. We were uncertain whether the storm(s) of interest would fire on the Front Range or on a convergence boundary farther E, in somewhat more moist air SW of Sterling. The answer: yes, and yes! From Sterling, we observed the growing anvil from a storm near DEN that was high-based but starting to rotate aloft (based on radar velocity imagery), along with multiple towers bubbling just to our SW, beneath and S of the anvil canopy.
The tower at left, in the last shot, erupted into a pre-supercellular supercell, before anvil shadowing had a chance to mitigate diabatic heating of its immediate inflow layer. We dropped S to stay ahead of both this storm and the more distant and growing beast roaring out of DEN. Even in this early stage, the new storm displayed nice corkscrewing action (the base of the DEN storm becoming visible at distant rear), looking W from the N side of the Colorado Plains Regional Airport (AKO). The storm spun around for a short while, moving slowly closer to us without growing a very large updraft. Meanwhile the DEN storm churned along essentially straight toward us, with a wall cloud and lowering becoming faintly visible in the distance under its southern flank. I sensed this closer storm wasn’t long for the world.
We headed E through Yuma, taking note of potential hail shelters for four reasons:
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1. The combination of the big western storm and any merger with a foregoing supercell could spawn some healthy ice bombs,
2. I still had a good windshield and didn’t want to bash the hell out of my new vehicle with gorilla hail this soon,
3. We deemed it wise to plan sheltering options in case we didn’t have time to bail S of Yuma and ahead of any storm acceleration, and
4. The next major town to the E was Wray, its S escape option (US-385) known to be under heavy construction with a surely nerve-wracking and possibly vehicle-destroying situation of one-lane, pilot-car closure for many miles!
Meanwhile, another tower went up in some slightly more strongly heated air several miles farther S (to our SW), also evolving into a skinny supercell rather quickly, and likewise coming under the sprawling and thickening anvil of the onrushing western storm. In the last shot, from just E of Yuma, the outflow-surfing updraft base of the massive western menace is visible at distant left, and its downshear anvil canopy distant right — dwarfing the nearer but much smaller supercellular plume. The older tower (spinning down to its N) eventually merged with the northern part of the newer, closer supercell as the latter expanded. Then it expanded further and assumed some sharply sculpted structure, moving slowly E and expanding its updraft still further.
One thing it did do, before being absorbed by the big bad brute impending, was glow forth an eerie, ghostly layering of light and shadow, interspersed with subtle pastel hues, a weird sight that I’ve seldom seen to this extreme. Back under its SW flank, the near storm developed a circular, slowly rotating, mottled texture to its main updraft region, and even sported a ragged, conical lowering for a short time. What could this storm have done with an extra hour or two before being swallowed by the expanding, ever-intensifying convective Pac-Man stampeding eastward toward us…and it?
The western storm charged onward, turning more deviantly rightward such that its main mesocyclone region — now an HP “stormzilla” with suspicious lowerings in its “notch” area (actual view and deeply enhanced zoom) would go just S of Yuma — while the value or near-forward flank region would absorb our nearby supercell virtually overhead. A short-lived lowering that preceded those photos raised a tight little plume of dust, but due to distance and poor contrast, we’re unsure if it was tornadic.
Though expected, this event still lit a sense of foreboding within, as if billions of icy little swords of Damocles dangled high above. This merging maelstrom of mayhem accelerated too, sure to turn into a destructive tempest of a nastiness and ugliness that we cared not to endure unsheltered. Time to get into town and under that covering!
Surprisingly, we scooted under the canopy of an abandoned drive-in restaurant after only one other car: the county sheriff. Only once the hail began did other vehicles seek room there — most in utter futility. Much as when it was the place to go in Yuma for icy treats of another kind…first-come, first-served! Within ten minutes, hail up to 2 inches in diameter started hammering away on the tin roof, becoming dense in coverage and ear-splitting in loudness. Vehicles that couldn’t fit got a glass-busting, steel-denting beatdown.
Although we had been hailed on while in a vehicle on several occasions, Elke and I hadn’t yet experienced a rip-roaring hailstorm together from under outdoor shelter. It was quality time as a married couple — at least, once I stopped yelling over the deafening din about the camera lens I couldn’t find. We had a blast.
I actually remembered to shoot some video of this with our new HD camcorder (video being something I’m not accustomed to doing after several years without), while also firing off a few hi-res DSLR stills with the lens that turned out to be in my left hand the whole time prior. One of those stills captured the a rare, split-second scene indeed: a hailstone exploding upon striking the pavement. It reminds me of some artist’s conception of an asteroid striking the moon, minus the fireball in the locus of impact.
After the beating was over, we secured a room at a little yellow motel. The lady who ran the motel mentioned that her daughter owned a restaurant and bar in town, Main Event, that was open and serving dinner late. Outstanding…we could avoid the usual storm observer’s conflict between getting dinner before early, small-town closing times and heading out for photography!
We headed a few miles SE of town to examine field hail and photograph the beautiful late-day, post-storm light (looking NE and looking WNW). Here are a few nice examples of that hail, about 45 minutes after it fell (culled from grassy, protected areas):
- Variably opaque core, clear outer layer with numerous radial bubbles
- Same stone silhouetted against the sky to illustrate its translucence
- Different stone, larger opaque core
- Two hailstones: Entirely opaque and rounded, the other asymmetric, broken and of mixed opacity
- Right before the sun sets, four hailstones on a gravel road [Would this compel Lucinda Williams to re-title one of her best-selling songs accordingly?]
While looking down at the hail, don’t forget to look overhead! Upon doing so, we saw sunset-lit fractocumuli shedding condensation vortices, including this ragged funnel and a separate, fishhook-shaped horseshoe vortex that wandered off to the E, slowly spinning down on its own for many minutes in the warming colors of the late-day rays (zoom). Here’s the western sky at the time.
All manner of fascinating processes were happening. Off to the SE rose a skinny, tilted tower, elevated atop the shallow stable layer from the earlier storms, seemed to be divided into two stepwise manifestations of the same convective plumes — one rooted just above the boundary layer, and a second slanted along some higher surface, with a backshear on the W side of the upper layer. Meanwhile, off to our E, dark wisps of scud passed placidly in front of a gorgeously glowing tower in the back side of the MCS. All of this while immersed in the luxuriantly earthy scent of rain-soaked farmland, while western meadowlarks sang from all sides…
We were getting hungry, though; so we cruised back into town for what turned out to be a very good meal at Main Event. I recommend the place for a late dinner if you end up anywhere near Yuma after a chase.
Chugwater Tornadic Supercell
Chugwater WY, 20 Jun 10
SHORT: Observed tornado from second of two supercells E of Chugwater.
LONG: Since Scotts Bluff National Monument was just a few blocks from our motel doorstep, we had time for some late morning through midday hiking, as well as photographing wildflowers and other interesting scenery near the top, before grabbing a quick lunch and heading west to our target area of southeast WY. See, for us, the so-called “storm chase” vacation isn’t just about storms, but about appreciation of as much of the Great plains’ offerings of beauty and wonder, large and small, as possible — storms being the major component, but not the entire experience. And so it was that we strolled atop the bluff o’ tuff, pondering the view up this way from the Oregon Trail’s wagon trains rolling up the North Platte valley below, while also occasionally looking at surface maps and satellite images on our I-Phones, and considering the effect the stable air represented by this stratified overcast would have on the day’s convective potential.
Thin breaks and occasional peeks at the sun indicated some destabilization was occurring, in an area of nicely backed surface winds from there westward, and automated mesoanalyses of CAPE and CINH fields bore that hunch out. As we descended from the hill, as if on cue, the first towers began to erupt over the Laramie Range, where the clouds had been eroded over the highest terrain in the area, allowing maximum heating. We couldn’t see them through the stratus, of course, and I had doubts about how far E convection could make it off the mountains before getting into grunge and weakening There was no doubt we needed to follow Horace Greeley’s old advice and “go west”. As we did so, two storms started to rotate:
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1. A cell in the Wheatland/Dwyer area, headed NE toward Jay Em but also toward some decidedly stable air, and
2. A storm moving somewhat more slowly and seemingly anchored along the foothills near Chugwater.
We went through Torrington along the way, then SW, catching a brief view of the distant and uninspiring base of the northern storm, before moving SW toward an area of obvious darkness above and beyond the intervening stratus deck. By the time we got to a good vantage W of Yoder and S of veteran WY, the southern storm, which had been a supercell, already was losing definition in its base and soon would turn into a strung-out, most likely elevated plume of convection.
Fortunately, the strong heating continued off the W edge of the stratus deck and the E edge of the mountains, firing additional convection still farther SW. With the boundary layer continuing to get more unstable in that direction, we backed through Yoder and S again past Hawk Springs. Then we then headed up the beautiful bluffs E of Chugwater along one of my favorite drives in the region (WY-313), only to greet an already well-developed and obviously surface-based storm by the time we arose on the high plateau E of I-25. The storm was calving off left splits, one of which can be seen beyond an abandoned farm structure in this shot looking WNW. Turning our attention to the WSW, the large, robust right mover quickly cut a clear slot and formed a broad, rotating, bowl-shaped lowering
behind it (and above the letter “s” ending my name in this wide-angle shot). This was only a few minutes after we had arrived at our location, and then, at 1624 MDT (2224 Z)…
T-TIME!
You see, in most years, a tornado is such a rare and amazing event to witness for any storm observer. This year, I had experienced lousy luck with tornado photography in what has been a banner season for some others. In most cases (e.g., Bowdle SD, Faith SD, Campo CO), I wasn’t available to chase on the fantastic day in question. On one (10 May, OK), I (along with some other very talented chasers) got on the one storm that refused to produce anything more than a brief spinup while observable. On another (16 Jun, SD), the storm blocked the only safe road access to it with flooding and hooks filled with both precip and precip-wrapped tornadoes, while also going nuts on the other side.
After all that tornadic frustration, then, it surely felt good to see one that was not low-contrast, rain-wrapped and/or too brief to photograph, even if it was a small and otherwise not very newsworthy hose. The tornado slowly roamed wide-open land and, to our knowledge, hit no structures of consequence — just the way we like it. As seen from about 3-4 miles to its E, the tornado manifest initially as a tapering cone (zoom), with two episodes of visible ground contact. The first is shown in this zoom (see wide angle structure view), followed by a few minutes where neither condensation nor dust was evident under the base of the funnel (wide angle structure view), followed by a few minutes where full condensation planted again.
That vacillation was described by some observers as separating two tornadoes that occurred from the same vortex (by definition, a tornado must have ground contact), while others deemed it as one tornado with a weak interlude. What is a tornado? The ground was soaked out there, minimizing dust, although it did lose full-condensation again before lofting some combination of spray and dust (super wide, with storm structure). The tornado started to wrap deeply back into its occluding mesocyclone, then roped out.
Tornado-wise, that was all the storm could do. We felt fortunate to get there just in time! We also had to bail east, off the high plateau, because hailstones of 2 inches and larger in diameter started falling around us with discomforting splats and thuds right as I was shooting the last rope-out photo. We got out from under the vault with no hail impacts, then headed S and E in a very difficult effort to find a good W-NW view of the weakening supercell that wasn’t overly obstructed by terrain. Some others we know weren’t so lucky with hail. At that vantage, we encountered the Tempest bunch with Chuck, Chad Cowan, and Bill Reid, here shown calling for lodging from behind two giant hail craters patched with duct tape. Not far to our W, as the tornado began to narrow, that part of the vault immediately downshear from the low-level mesocyclone unceremoniously heaved forth gorilla hailstones up to 4 inches in diameter. It’s a good thing nobody was hurt by that hail (a vastly under-appreciated injury hazard in storm observing)!
The supercell moved over progressively more stable low-level air while attempting to backbuild, and eventually just died. That left us with no storm and some daylight, which we used for traveling to our motel in Sidney. On the way down toward I-90, we stopped to photograph an abandoned farm with soft stratocu and baby-blue sky in the background. We then hopped on the Interstate for a very unusual (for late June!) plunge through a late-afternoon regime of cool fog and mist, in the stratified air mass E of where the supercell had been.