9/14/07 DISC: NC

[Dan Robinson]

Unbelievable. I was initially excited to see Raleigh finally getting some real rain today, but that seems trivial now given the latest turn of events. A mini-outbreak of tornadoes struck just south of Raleigh today. One tornado report was relayed at the intersection of Old Stage Road and Rock Service Road, and another one over Lake Benson. This track means the meso could have passed within a few hundred yards, if not directly over, the house here on Ten Ten Road, between Old Stage and Rand Road. The tornado, if in progress between the two reports, was most certainly visible from the property. Where was I? At my brother's wedding rehearsal in downtown Raleigh! Some of the tornadoes were photographed and have been making headlines here.

At daylight tomorrow morning I am going out to take a look at things, but since my brother's wedding is tomorrow, I will not be able to get out and do a more detailed damage survey until Sunday.

I have had some past situations of missing action close to home, but this one beats them all.

[Bill Hark]

Unexpected mini outbreak of tornadoes with the interaction of a front and remnant moisture from Humberto. There are already some images of funnel clouds appearing on the local media.

Check out this tornado from an amateur that was sent to WRAL. (Rock Service Station ?road)

http://wwwcache.wral.com/asset/golo/2007/09/14/1817771/46eb24a53f8b0-600x385.jpg

I am sure more images and video will appear. Hopefully, there were some chasers as I know of several in central NC. Dan, I really feel your pain. A happy occasion that your brother gets married but not a good time. I always worry every time I have to be somewhere during severe weather season.

Bill Hark

[Dan Robinson]

Yep, that's at Rock Service Road and Old Stage. The house I'm staying at is on Ten Ten Road, just north of where that image was taken. That would have been visible from the house.....wow.

Check out the structure in this image, shot near Clayton (east of the house).

http://wwwcache.wral.com/asset/golo/2007/09/14/1817774/46eb24cccf127-600x450.jpg

[Kurt Hulst]

Dan do you know of any other links to images from this event?

[Jeff Snyder]

Check out this tornado from an amateur that was sent to WRAL. (Rock Service Station ?road)

http://wwwcache.wral.com/asset/golo/2007/09/14/1817771/46eb24a53f8b0-600x385.jpg
Bill Hark

It's been noted somewhere else as well, but that image appears to be pirated from Greg Stumpf, and that tornado occurred in 1989! See the first picture on http://www.cimms.ou.edu/~stumpf/stormph.html (http://www.cimms.ou.edu/%7Estumpf/stormph.html) . The picture is the same, though with some smoothing and a little resize. I'm not sure what would possess someone to go online, take a picture from someone else's website, and then upload it to a news agency, claiming they took it from some other event...

[Angie Norris]

So that explains why my initial thought on seeing the pic was that doesn't look like an eastern US tornado but more like a Plains storm. Most places aren't that flat and tree-less. Hopefully Greg has seen this and goes after the perp.
Dan, BTW...send my congrats to your brother and his new wife!!

[Dan Robinson]

Yeah, we were looking at that today and noticing that there were no trees visible in the shot, even in the distance. The area south of Raleigh has a lot of open fields, but nowhere could you get a shot with no trees visible at all. I wonder what people get out of sending in false/stolen images. I do feel a little better that I didn't really miss a tornado that looked like that.

Thanks for the congrats! I'm not too upset, I wouldn't have skipped out even if I had known about the setup ahead of time. Bill Coyle was here as the wedding photographer, so that makes three chasers who were here in the midst of the event and missing it! Here are some video grabs of the wedding - BTW I was the best man.

http://stormhighway.com/blog/sept1507a.shtml

And a shot from Bill:

http://www.photosig.com/go/photos/view?id=2065195&forward=

[Bill Hark]

That really makes me mad. I thought the ground looked a bit treeless and flat but I have seen occasional treeless views while chasing across Virginia and NC. Sorry for posting in error.

So that explains why my initial thought on seeing the pic was that doesn't look like an eastern US tornado but more like a Plains storm

Although the ground is a bit too flat and treeless, the tornado form is possible in the east. Here is a link to thumb nail images from my compilation DVD of eastern USA tornadoes. Notice that many do appear like Plains tornadoes.
http://www.harkphoto.com/EasternFury.html

Here is one image from Georgia: trees in the background but nice Plains structure:

http://www.harkphoto.com/WilliamsonGApromo.jpg


Sorry again for passing on wrong info about the NC tornado.


Bill Hark

[Craig Maire II]

Congratulations Dan regarding your brother's marriage! :) I too was wondering when I first saw that tornado pic, definitely looked like something you would witness on the plains or midwest.

[Michael O'Keeffe]

I was searching google images and came across the photo of the supossed Raleigh, NC tornado. I clicked on the link only for it to be copyrighted by Greg Stumpf mentioning that it was taken in 1989 in the TX Panhandle which is much more believable.

http://www.cimms.ou.edu/~stumpf/stormph.html

[Terry Tyler]

I was searching google images and came across the photo of the supossed Raleigh, NC tornado. I clicked on the link only for it to be copyrighted by Greg Stumpf mentioning that it was taken in 1989 in the TX Panhandle which is much more believable.

http://www.cimms.ou.edu/~stumpf/stormph.html

good find micheal...

i was fixin to say...that dont look like any NC terrain to me...