4/23/07 REPORTS: TX / OK / KS / CO

[Jeff Snyder]

Wow. I, Dan Dawson, Robin Tanamachi, Gabe Garfield, Jana Houser, Chris Emersick (sp?) barely recovered from what we thought was an imminent bust. We waited an hour or so in Shamrock, hoping for convection near Clarendon or Silverton to develop and sustain. Seeing that this may not happen, we jetted northward towards the convection in the extreme TX panhandle and extreme nw OK. We finally caught up to it north of Buffalo. We saw our first tornado ESE of Sitka. Punching through the light wrap-around precip, we then spotted a small tornado to our southeast (which would put it just SW of Protection). Then, a slightly larger tornado to our immediate south. Then yet another tornado to our west. Yup, I think there were three tornadoes on the ground at the same time between Protection and Sitka. The westernmost tornado was largely an elephant trunk in shape, and it even went through a drill-press-like state. I've never seen three tornadoes lined up like that... All of them were associated with organized cloud-base rotation, so it almost appeared like a multi-vortex mesocyclone, with three embedded tornado cyclones.

We followed this storm north of Protection before watching it weaken (though we got some good lightning pics). It appears as though we got to the storm just in the nic of time, though. As we drove through Canadian, the updrafts looked quite impressive, with rock-hard towers and tops. By the time we entered into OK and drove through Arnett, however, they looked quite leaned-over. We almost, almost gave up, but decided that we just wanted a view of the base. When the base finally came into view, we were extremely surprised to see a large, low wall-cloud west of Buffalo (DZ wasn't impressivel). A bad road option almost cost us, but all is well.

It's nice to avoid a bust, and the experience was quite intense for a while. We'll have pics and vid-stills up after tomorrow's (successful, hopefully) chase.

EDIT: While between the precip core and the mesocyclone on Hwy 160, we advanced through the light-moderate wrap-around precip to witness a fantastic, tiered updraft. It looked a lot like the Attica updraft of 5-12-04 fame... Incredible structure from that vantage point, and surprising considering that it looked like the tower was leaning more than 45 degrees earlier. Total tornado count: ~7 in Clark and Comanche counties, KS. I have 5 on video, and the passengers in my car (Gabe and Jana) were seated in much better position to view two more.

[Mike Hollingshead]

Did the Perryton to Canadian shuffle today and blew the whole deal. I'm a dumb****. I was south of Meade in the OK panhandle as those started. Problem was no data and they were very very fibrous and mushy early on. I still wanted to go east as the area seemed to have some hope and they were fairly solid down low, it was just the anvil area that was horrid looking...smashed in the cirrus. Looking at my alltel map I knew I'd have no data if I went east, but saw I could get some if I went west. Well went west and nothing, then had to drop south to Perryton to finally get some. Then saw the stuff going up east of AMA, first returns. Didn't wait and blasted south, back out into no data.

Meanwhile the eastern towers had more hope. I get to Canadian and get data again and see my hope east of AMA was gone, but a new return just formed out west, north of it. So I went back north to Perryton. Was with no data again till I got there. Looped the radar and saw the thing going straight north...not good. It was quickly apparent it wasn't going to work with its anvil going se as it went north(it was elevated). Still, I thought maybe just maybe it could turn since the one up by Goodland grabbed on as the deeper moisture hit it. As I went north watching it, I noted my eastern stuff in the same area it'd been the whole time, only now it was getting much more intense with convection curling back down in the backshear. I never thought I'd get ahead of it at that point and blew it off and went north of Liberal(evidently I had time as I saw Dan Robinson around this time, before I casually drove north).

Finally I decide to jet up to DDC and se to intercept it in the dark. I got some stills of it from the nw looking se as it was tornado warned. It was cool, but not 16 hours driving cool. I had about 30 minutes to shoot stills of it, before it vanished. I never tried to see any tubes under it, as I just didn't care by that point.

I knew I was messing up when I first opted to drive west to find data in the OK panhandle around 3. I sat there trying to figure out what was best, go east very early on and not be able to get data and maybe miss something out west or down near AMA...or go west and get data and let the towers to the east slip away. That was screw up one, but even at that, I still had more than enough time to correct and go east much later. I just never thought it'd be worth it(able to catch up) until it was too late and obvious I could have caught what turned into a slow mover.

I hate chasing.

Congrats to everyone that bagged today and good luck tomorrow.

[Martin Kucera]

Followed the same supercell Jeff is talking about, from Canadian, TX. It went through some interesting motions all afternoon and finally, just as it was getting dark, it produced. I noticed the first tube a few miles S of Protection, looking to my east. Contrast was bad on this one. Then I went a bit north and east, drove through some heavy rain and there it was. White tornado came into view really close ahead and crossed the road, about half way between Sitka, KS and Protection, KS. This is interesting since it seemed the tornado travelled due NW and if it indeed crossed the road, there were no powerlines down. Great looking tornado and so close some folks were backing up their vehicles.
The supercell died quickly, shortly after dark.
Thank You, Jim.

VIDEO HERE :
http://www.floridalightning.com/files/April23_2007_Protection_KS_Tornadoes.wmv

STILLS:
http://www.floridalightning.com/images/April23_2007.jpg
http://www.floridalightning.com/images/Protection_Tornado.jpg
http://www.floridalightning.com/images/Protection_Tornado1.jpg
http://www.floridalightning.com/images/Protection_Tornado2.jpg

[Mickey Ptak]

Chad Lawson, Mickey Ptak, and myself decided to stay with our target today and risk a capbust as opposed to screaming north to the OK/KS storm. Jeff Snyder and company passed us after we'd already decided to give up going north, so obviously we made a bad choice. We were headed to the north storm when we all decided we wanted to risk a cap bust to keep our original target area...so we did. We were nearly rewarded, as we managed to get on the tornado-warned storm southwest of Pampa, and watched it go from t-warned to gone in less than an hour....chase over. We don't regret the decision, as we dared the subsidence (sp?) to try and stop our storm.......it did.

So now we're bouncing along I-40 headed home, to lick our wounds and prepare for tomorrow's headache,,er chase.

btw...this is Shane on Mick's computer

[Jason A.C. Brock]

Saw the LP storm near Pampa along with half the other chasers in Oklahomam and TX Panhandle who were not in NW OK. Amazing structure and corkscrewing updraft! Timelapse of this thing will be AWESOME. I will post pics and vid of this & last weekends and tomorrows storms on my website perhaps Wednesday.
Will have plenty of pics and video to play with once this season slows down....if it slows down. Still looks like first week of May may be quite at least in Southern Plains. Until then tho we have another storm forthis weekend.

[Jerry Funfsinn]

This storm developed SW of Lavern OK and was pretty shy about producing a tornado for a long while. I would be shy too, I must have seen
the entire who's who of storm chasing on this poor cell. It took moving into Kansas for it to finally let loose just west of Protection Kansas. I've seen
tornadoes and I've seen 2 tornadoes simultaniously, but three! This storm literally had me surrounded. I no sooner finished
filming a beautiful slender tornado and nearly got clipped by another in the field directly south of me and was amazed to see
a third "very large" one behind that one.Incredible structure with this storm prior to the tornadoes.I've never seen such rotation
in so many parts of a storm before.
Oh did I mention, I LOVE KANSAS!
http://creativejetstream.com/pictures/windmilltornado2.jpg
http://creativejetstream.com/pictures/protection_kstornado2.jpg
http://creativejetstream.com/pictures/protection_kstornado3.jpg

Jerry Funfsinn
CreativeJetstream.com (http://creativejetstream.com)

[Tony Laubach]

Well, I just wrote a lengthy report covering our 522 mile trip today, but was an idiot and hit the back button on my mouse and it is now gone...

Short version, we arrived late to Protection but nabbed the long slender rope tornado.

I've had 3 chases in a row with at least one tornado and have eclipsed my single April count to 6 tornadoes with a total of 7 thus far on the year. Hoping to go 4-in-a-row after tomorrow!

http://www.tornadoeskick.com/images/2007/070423a.jpg
Low contrast video still as we raced east on Hwy 160.

[Mikey Gribble]

I was on the Protection Kansas supercell and got four tornadoes. We got on the storm about 10 minutees after it got severe warned. Over the next two hours it produced countless funnels and some very impressive rotation and vertical motion, but for some reason it could never get the job done and put down a tornado. I was starting to loose hope in my chances for a tornado, but then it finally got its act together an put down one tornado after another. The first one was a stove pipe that lasted about 6 minutes. The second one was a beautiful elephant trunk that looked like a drill bit at the surface. Then the third and fourth tornadoes only last a minute or two each and they both were cones. It was an awesome chase day. I am way too tired to post any pics right now, but if you want to see my video it will be on CNN. It feels good to get a forecast right and bag a nice tornadic supercell after missing out on Saturday. Congrats to everybody who got the tornadoes today.

[Dan Robinson]

Post deleted due to updated log posting later in this thread.

See

http://stormhighway.com/april232007.shtml

[Jason Boggs]

Got on the LP supercell in the TX panhandle that went up south of White Deer. I chased it to Pampa when it died a quick and sudden death. It was definitely one of the most beautiful LP storms I have ever seen. I was surprised when it went tornado warned though. I never saw any tornadic signs with this storm at all. Anyway, here are the photos.

http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/1216/lp1co3.jpg

http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/6109/lp2kf6.jpg

http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/6848/lp3vn4.jpg

http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/4007/lp4hh1.jpg

[Wesley Luginbyhl]

Chased the LP storm near Pampa today as well. It had some incredible structure, but after seeing the photos from those who bagged today, its feeling like a bust. Congrats to those who didnt waste their time thinking this storm was actually going to do anything.

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q122/not_a_leader_of_men/DSC_0034-1.jpg
http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q122/not_a_leader_of_men/DSC_0048-1.jpg
The last photo sums up the whole day.
http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q122/not_a_leader_of_men/DSC_0080-1.jpg

[Cameron Redwine]

I just got home from a nice day chase to northwest Kansas. I chased today with Scott Landolt, David Dowell, and company. We spent most of the afternoon waiting for initiation at a truck stop in Limon. We eventually headed east towards developing convection near Tribune. By the time we reached I-70/KS 27, there had already been one report of a tornado on the ground. We went south on KS 27 and witnessed a nice little cone for a couple of minutes just south of the Sherman/Wallace County line around 7:00PM MDT.

[Simon Brewer]

Gonna make this quick: followed the supercell from Lipscomb Co, TX to Protection, KS; saw tornadoes and had a good day.

[Kenny Drake]

We (me and Chris Whitehead) made the initial target Woodward for data. We made it to the Days Inn on the west side of Woodward at about 3:00pm. Sat vis showed a nice clearing in the cirrus deck to the SW which was subsequently mixing out the low level clouds. We drove southwest to Canadian hoping for something to go up along the differential heating boundary between the cloud deck to the south and clearing to the north. The cell that would become the reason for the Great NW OK Chaser Convergence of 2007 was quite ragged for some time. I have not been able to flood over the obs yet but the cell just exploded NE of Canadian. I'm assuming the influence of the 500mb jet max may have something to do with that. We finally intercepted the meso on 283 just east of Catesby. This cell was interesting in that there was never one concentrated area of rotation and made it very difficult to get up close and personal. Finally, just into Kansas... well everyone else has posted what we saw. Cut the chase just east of Protection, KS and headed back to Norman. Now with a little luck we'll get initiation in central OK tomorrow Because I do not really want to go to KS after 12 hours today.

[Bryce Stone]

I drove 600+ miles (round trip) to get an ice cream cone at the Braum's in Pampa, and it took me 10 hours and about $100 to do it. Ah, well. I'll get something today (Tuesday) to make up for the bust. That LP did have really nice structure for a while, though. I suppose it was worth the trip.

[Jerry Funfsinn]

This is a screen capture I took prior to heading north and then east (through the core) through Sitka, KS to get on a better road and view before dark.

http://creativejetstream.com/pictures/746.jpg
Looking SW the video shows the first (windmill) tornado and the second shot is the development that was over me as I watched the first rope out. I glanced over my shoulder to see a debris cloud in field next to me and rushed east to get out of the way.

Link to video here (http://creativejetstream.com/video/protectionKS_042307.wvx)

Jerry Funfsinn
CreativeJetstream.com (http://creativejetstream.com)

[Ray Walker]

Had an awsome chase yesterday. 4/23/07 Me and a buddy of mine, Mike potter chased the Laverne Ok supercell. We intercepted this storm just to the SW of Laverne and followed it all the way to protection Ks. We saw at least 6 tornadoes with this storm. all were breif except for the very nice small cone tornado that had insane drill bit action at ground level. We were watching a Violently rotating wall cloud dirtectly over us on the north side of HWY 160 when Mike told me to look to the west and we watched a nice cone come out of some rain and hail about 2 or three miles to our west. The tornado then crossed the HWY infront of us and we pulled over and got some insane video of this thing just churning up the feilds. We think that right after it crossed the HWY it hit a House or barn because we saw debris start flying.
All in all one of my best chase days ever.

[jason kissam]

I chased starting in Monument colorado (el paso county) along hwy 83 in Douglas county colorado, witnessed a brief lowering in the cloud base. after that ran into several hail shafts (nickel size) along hwy 86 going east to limon. Reached limon Still active systems to the east. total trip around 200 miles:

Some of my photos
This started to lower in douglas county off of black forest road and walker road. nothing came of it.
http://www.Photo-Host.org/thumb/907936possible_funnel.jpg (http://www.Photo-Host.org/view/907936possible_funnel.jpg)

Some awesome coloring to this mammatus section also on walker road
http://www.Photo-Host.org/thumb/222060mammatus.jpg (http://www.Photo-Host.org/view/222060mammatus.jpg)

My chase partner Marcelo was tracking the fort morgan storm. and he sent me great pictures of that storm as it was tornado warned. these are marcelo's pics

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s150/TORNADOEMT/ftmorgan3.jpg

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s150/TORNADOEMT/ftmorgan.jpg

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s150/TORNADOEMT/ftmorgan2.jpg

[Brian Stertz]

Rich and Ryan Thies and I followed the Lipscomb Co. TX supercell northward and caught the zany tornado show in/around the Protection KS area (Comanche Co.)...which was beyond words. The structure of that supercell was jaw dropping as we viewed it from the east of Protection. For the first time in my chase career, I caught 3 tornadoes on the ground at the same time. Pics to follow...returned last night from a bust in C.Kansas.

[Adam Atkins]

Put together a clip of the Protection, KS storm. Kiel Ortega and I targeted Perryton, TX. We liked the full insolation north of the cirrus canopy, Monday, and the cap weakened substantially to initiate a cluster of storms on the pre-dryline confluence boundary in the E Texas panhandle. We were between the LP near Borger, TX and the explosive updraft of the tornadic storm and the decision to head east was a no-brainer. I haven't seen as impressive an updraft or backsheared anvil since the Pierce City, MO storm on May 4, 2003. Great chase with triplet mesocyclones, and I've also heard the term multiple vortex mesocyclone used. Storm didn't start producing for nearly an hour and a half after we got on it, but in a span of 25 minutes we saw 6 tornadoes. Here's the vid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFS3pM_be7E

[Brett Roberts]

Myself, Brandon Lawson, and Bryan Putnam got an early start and arrived in Shamrock by 2:00, a good while before the big crowd gathered at the Best Western. We spent the better part of the next few hours waiting for initiation to the west or southwest on the Caprock, ignoring the initial storm that developed right over our heads early in the afternoon. Eventually, some folks began to take off for it after it'd already moved a ways off (up towards Gage) and become more impressive on radar, as everything going up in the TX Panhandle was quickly dying out. Well, obviously they made the right choice given what it went on to produce. We hesitated, briefly started to shoot north on US-83, then decided to turn around when we hit road construction only a few minutes outside Shamrock - I already had my doubts that we'd ever catch up to the storm until it was about dark, and this just seemed like a bad omen.

After this, we decided to head west a bit in the hopes that some of the struggling updrafts out that way might get their act together. Stopped in McLean for data, and immediately noticed the cell crossing I-40 south of Panhandle looking quite nice, so we shot northwest to Pampa, hearing it become t-warned en route. We arrived to find the very slender LP cell many have already mentioned, which was visually impressive, but at the same time didn't look to have any discernable low-level rotation or chance of producing a tornado. It was pretty remarkable (in a crushing way) to watch it crap out so quickly in low-mid 60s dews, on a hyped MDT-risk day, in which the primary concern was initiation, rather than tornado-producing ability once any storms did fire. Made for some nice photo ops though, which are posted below. Even knowing it's only April, I can't help but feel a little down about missing the tornadic action on all three of the big days the past week has had to offer (4/21, 4/23, 4/24).

http://www.skyinmotion.com/chase/albums/2007-04-23/2007-04-23_0692.jpg

http://www.skyinmotion.com/chase/albums/2007-04-23/2007-04-23_0701.jpg

[Mikey Gribble]

Here is a link to some of my video of one of the tornadoes on the Protection Kansas storm. It would have been nice if CNN credited me, but whatever.
http://www.cnn.com/video/partners/clickability/index.html?url=/video/weather/2007/04/24/vo.kansas.tornado.cnn

[Mike Hollingshead]

Some images from Bucklin KS looking se at the Protection storm: (http://www.extremeinstability.com/07-4-23.htm)

http://www.extremeinstability.com/stormpics/2007/07-4-23-1366.jpg

http://www.extremeinstability.com/stormpics/2007/07-4-23-1385.jpg

http://www.extremeinstability.com/stormpics/2007/07-4-23-1387.jpg

[Randy Denzer]

Shane Motley and myself drove 450 miles with the Texas A&M team in tow to get to the cell as it crossed I-40 just east of Amarillo. We saw the Tornado warning get issued and we thought we may be ready for a big score until we actually saw it. Very pretty cell at it's peak but it sorta fell sideways and died!!

Go to: www.mcwar.org to see Shanes cool time lapse of the cell. The video is posted on youtube link on the front page.

[Ray Walker]

After reveiwing video I have concluded that me and my budy Mike potter saw at least 8 tornadoes with the tornadic supercell from just north of laverne Oklahoma all the way up to protection Kansas.

[Patrick Martin]

Left my house at 4:30 after making a quick turnaround for equipment and gas. Headed to Ft. Morgan to play the convergence boundary that had set up across eastern Adams & Arapahoe + western Morgan counties. Stopped for a look at radar off I-76 and exit 80 at the Days Inn in Ft. Morgan. Storm was 10 miles to my north and tor warned. Could see something of a lowering from my vantage on the south side of I-76.
374
I then moved northeast on I-76 with the intention of going to Brush. There was a lot of rising scud to my north, and I bailed off the highway at the next exit, I believe it was Double Bridge Rd. I followed it for 5 miles north until it went to dirt and found a vantage point on a rise. There was rising motion/scud, and some rotation in the base. It seemed to try, but appeared to be going outflow dominant and getting seeded by the storm moving up from the south. Observed it for 30 minutes before heading back to home at 7pm as I was on a timetable and had a commitment back in Denver. Roundtrip 175 miles. Not a prolific chase by any means, but a lot of fun after work. A couple more pics.
375 376

[scott r currens]

The following link contains video of the three simultaneous tornadoes near Protection, KS. I need more camcorders. LOL
http://www.violentplains.com/video/ScottCurrens20070423b.wmv

[Amos Magliocco]

EricN, Robert Hall and I chased the Pampa-vicinity LP that Brett posted above. It was a great looking LP for a while that threatened to turn classic when the base widened, but it shrunk when the precip disappeared and the defined striations faded. We watched it vanish into nothing and hung out with Ken McAllister at Sonic afterwards.

I should have imagery of this storm on my website by the end of the weekend.

[Brandon Smith]

Me, Alex Lamers, Sam Dienst and several others were also on the LP supercell in Pampa. Having not left Norman until 3:30, we reached Shamrock just as the storm started getting it's act together when crossing I-40. We approached from the SE side of Pampa, stopping to take some shots of the amazing structure. Unfortunately, our view was partially blocked by a low cloud bank, which we believe to be from the supercell structure that was getting sheared away. It looked like for a few times there it was going to possibly produce a funnel cloud but couldn't quite get there. As everyone has stated, the storm then quickly dissipated and was nothing but a small cloud of storm debris in a matter of 30 minutes. Here are my photos from the day.

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s145/quiksmith10/lp_supercell_pampa_tx_2.jpg

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s145/quiksmith10/lp_supercell_pampa_tx_dieing.jpg

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s145/quiksmith10/lp_supercell_pampa_tx_gone.jpg

[Jonathan Merage]

What a day! Intercepted the Ashland and Protection tornadoes with Sean Mullins. We also observed the impressive triple meso structure with the three touchdowns Scott's video & other reports confirmed. Initially, I wasn't sure if the storm actually had three separate rotations on the ground at once, since we stayed just west of the huge precip core that produced the famous drill bit. We're glad we did, as the tornado emerged from the base out of near-zero visibility and 2.75" hail, according to GR3. The tornado had a north-northwesterly track that took it directly across our field of view giving us an amazing perspective on the base & bringing it within a couple miles of our location.

The first tornado, reported near Ashland, KS.
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s132/jmerage/Protrectiontornado1-4.jpg

Drill bit approaching Protection.
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s132/jmerage/Protectiontornado2-1-1.jpg

Zoom-in of the base. Trees & other debris flying in the circulation.
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s132/jmerage/Protectiontornado2base2.jpg

[Alex Lamers]

Well Brandon covered the basics. We were on the LP supercell near Pampa, Texas. The chase account can be found in my blog which is linked in my signature. If not you can just click here (http://themicroburst.blogspot.com/2007/04/late-chase-account-april-23-2007.html).

For being a non-tornado chase I was actually riding home pretty happy. That was a very impressive storm, my first LP supercell and that made me happy. Nothing near it at all either so it was very photogenic.

AJL

[Jimmy Deguara]

23rd April 2007 - LP supercell near White Deer, Texas
http://www.australiasevereweather.com/photography/thumbs/2007/0423jd06.jpg (http://www.australiasevereweather.com/photography/photos/2007/0423jd06.jpg) http://www.australiasevereweather.com/photography/thumbs/2007/0423jd08.jpg (http://www.australiasevereweather.com/photography/photos/2007/0423jd08.jpg) http://www.australiasevereweather.com/photography/thumbs/2007/0423jd18.jpg (http://www.australiasevereweather.com/photography/photos/2007/0423jd18.jpg)
More pics here
http://australiansevereweather.com.au/photography/photos/2007/jd20070423.html

[Brian Stertz]

I hope to have a chase story and photo gallery of the Lipscomb CO. TX to Comanche Co. KS supercell life cycle posted on Vortex Times by tomorrow night. Got some interesting shots including one from N. Harper Co. OK that may be one of my "quiz type" photos (tornado or no tornado). This photo is very interesting to say the least !! The chase was certainly a very rewarding April chase and got some awesome shots of this storm to post. I must say that any day around the April 20-24 timeframe usually produces for me across S.Kansas !! ;)

[Dan Robinson]

I finally completed our log for April 23, complete with video, frame grabs and Matt's digital stills. Four tornadoes for the day.

http://stormhighway.com/april232007/tor1ct.jpg http://stormhighway.com/april232007/tor2bt.jpg http://stormhighway.com/april232007/tor3et.jpg http://stormhighway.com/april232007/wallb2t.jpg

http://stormhighway.com/april232007/tor4bt.jpg (http://stormhighway.com/april232007.shtml)

http://stormhighway.com/april232007.shtml

EDIT: It now appears clear that we also can confirm the three tornadoes on the ground simultaneously (first three thumbnails above). The only other 'maybe' we have is the rapidly spinning wall cloud with an apparent narrow tube extending to the ground in the fourth thumbnail above.

[Jeff Bartlett]

I opted for the "middle of the road" target area in NW Oklahoma and set up shop in Arnett, OK, giving myself the option to shoot south into the Texas panhandle if good stuff fired down there or move north into Kansas if that seemed to be the better show. Storms soon began to fire and I weighed the options for about 30 minutes until the storm nearing Lipscomb, TX seemed to be my best option at that time. Wall cloud soon formed
http://www.orangepower.com/gallery/displayimage.php?imageid=430
and an unusual scud show developed,
http://www.orangepower.com/gallery/displayimage.php?imageid=432
and we all know how the story ends near Protection, KS.
http://www.orangepower.com/gallery/displayimage.php?imageid=435
As the storm neared the OK/KS border, I opted to break away from the convergence and shoot south, east, and north again on hwy 1 towards Coldwater.

Well, I missed out on the good tornadoes, but I did get some fantastic structure shots as the storm really got wrapped up over Protection. From the pictures, you can see how the main area of circulation was segmented from the main body of the storm. It almost appeared as a "mini-sup" on the southern periphery of the storm. These were taken while rocketing north towards Coldwater, and then just south of Coldwater at the airport looking due west at around the time of the larger of the tornadoes reported during that period.
http://www.orangepower.com/gallery/displayimage.php?imageid=436
http://www.orangepower.com/gallery/displayimage.php?imageid=437
http://www.orangepower.com/gallery/displayimage.php?imageid=438

Ended up getting some nice lightning shots before heading back home, only to return to Kansas the next day.
http://www.orangepower.com/gallery/displayimage.php?imageid=439


(Any info on getting these pictures to show up instead of just links would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.)

[Simon Brewer]

Finally got some pics up on my website, but still haven't gone through the video, check out the pics at this link:
http://www.stormgasm.com/4-23-07/4-23-07.htm
http://www.stormgasm.com/4-23-07/IMG_0355%20copy.JPG
http://www.stormgasm.com/4-23-07/IMG_0365%20copy.JPG

http://www.stormgasm.com/4-23-07/IMG_0396%20copy.JPG

[Martin Kucera]

Just added a video clip of the Protection, KS tornado to my website.
It is 8 min / 28MB medium quality clip converted from HDV to
SD.

http://www.floridalightning.com/files/April23_2007_Protection_KS_Tornadoes.wmv

[Brian Stertz]

I finally have my 4/23 chase index and photo galleries completed. My photo gallery links are towards the bottom of the index page. The link is below for those interested. Looks like we were in close proximity to you Simon on the east side of Protection.

http://vortex-times.com/42307index

[Dan Robinson]

My brother Matt has posted a series of digital stills of our April 23 chase on his site at:

http://raleighskyline.com/content/2007/05/02/late-april-plains-chase-report/

By the way, that's me and my brother, and our car, in the foreground of Simon's Protection tornado shot, also visible in a few of Brian's shots.

[David Hoadley]

One lesson I learned after leaving Sitka and driving through the approaching rain-core (no hail) toward Protection was to always look around and not just at the first tornado. A thin trunk came into view SW of town as I cleared the rain. Since available pull-offs were occupied, I continued driving east and taped most of it through the windshield.

After it lifted, I stopped on a country road a few miles west of town and turned around, back to the highway. Suddenly, rapidly twisting low cloud fragments appeared overhead and within a 1/4 mile (or closer) NW of me. It was the recent remnant of a tornadic lowering very close (!) to my SW, while I was blissfully pre-occupied with the first one. Thereafter, I framed that base in my viewfinder with the third one farther west --to keep both in view!!

After seeing distant photos of the rather large wedge overhead, I have resolved to be more alert in the future and not let the obvious make me miss something better or more dangerous in another direction. Sometimes, we are lucky to see a tornado --and sometimes we're just lucky!

- - - Dave Hoadley

[Jeff Snyder]

I hate to drudge up an old thread, but I've finally been able to upload a bunch of video stills from the local tornado-fest near Protection KS on 4/23/07. The tornado count seems to stand around 7 right now, but a couple of the tornadoes seem to have come from the same circulation. I'm not sure where my video stills of the first tornado ended up, but the 2nd-7th tornadoes are up there.

See my chase log and video stills at http://www.tornadocentral.com/chasing/2007/04232007.php

So as to avoid drudging up more "old" threads, I'll just say that I've added pictures from more of my April - May 2007 chases. See my 2007 Chase Logs page at http://www.tornadocentral.com/chasing/2007.php (the camera icon near the date - location indicates that pictures are available from that chase).