STORM TRACK: September 30, 1982 (Volume 5 Issue 6)

CORRECTION: ST erred twice in its July 31, 1982 issue. The May 9 tornado near Dawn, Texas was photographed by Tim Marshall, as described, not Jim Leonard. Also, Eric Rasmussen was not at the Altus tornado but at the Plaska, Texas one, along with Tim. [Storm Track CD-ROM editor's note: This is fixed.]

Resuming our summary of this year's chase reports to ST, we pick up on Wednesday, May 19, 1982, which by sunset had entered the record books as a standard by which to measure all other chase days. "The best day I've ever seen." said Tim Marshall of Texas Tech U., Lubbock. He, Roy Britt and Bobby Yudnick (sp?) comprised one chase vehicle, which virtually ran through seven 50 ft rolls of 8mm movie film and four rolls of 35 mm slides. Eric Rasmussen, Bruce Jensen and Mark Mabey were also taking pictures south of the storm, and Neal Rasmussen (Eric's brother) was photographing from 10 miles SE. Unknown at that time to the other Texas Tech chase teams, Jim Leonard was in the area, filming on his own. He also took superb pictures (slides and movies). At one point, he was sighted by a chase team, but they didn't know who he was. Since then, they have been in contact and are busily exchanging information and pictures (Hey! For those of you who are shy, this is a great way to meet people!). The Texas Tech team did a very thorough job, taking extensive minute-by-minute measurements locally from the chase vehicle on surface pressure, wind direction/speed, temperature and wet bulb readings. 'Without further elaboration, here is Tim Marshall's own account.