STORM TRACK: March 31, 1982 (Volume 5 Issue 3)

Figure #1 tornado was 23.5 miles away, with a possible error of +/- 1.5 miles.

Figure #2 tornado was 8.0 miles away, with a possible error of +/- 3/4 miles.

Following is the card scale and the rough chart that was used to develop it. The horizontal scale on both represents miles from the photographer, and the vertical scale represents the percentage of the exposed slide between cloud base and ground. Data entries are (1) adjacent-community/tornado locations across the 'horizontal axis, with distance in miles from the photographer and an estimated error range; and (2) cloud base to ground measurements as a percentage of the exposed slide. Of course, this data is by no means intended to be definitive from such a small sample. Storm Track is only proposing an idea which might be useful, and suggesting one way of doing it.

Example: Tornado is 1.7 miles away

One interesting aspect of the Boulangerville tornado, which was the only one o the "high base" storms that did not occur in western Kansas, was the absence of a low base during its dissipating stage. While it, seemed to start out with a normal lowered base, that base seemed to erode toward the end of the tornado until no base was evident even at almost 6 miles away. If "Storm Data" was correct in its location of this storm (I knew about where I was), it means that cloud base height can vary dramatically immediately adjacent to the tornado. Perhaps the best estimates of cloud base should be made early rather than late in a tornado's life cycle.