04/06/06 REPORTS: KS/NE/IA/MO/OK/AR/TX [Archive]

Daniel Christianson

04-06-2006, 10:26 PM

Well after getting off work around 4 i headed south on 50, then at Hwy 2 and 50, i go west on Hwy 2 to 66 south , and pretty much was on gravel roads, plenty of spotters out tonight , kind of funny when the winds kicked in the firemen sitting at the cemetery entrance watching the storm, i looked at them and they look at me ,, when them winds kickedd up we both kind of said Oh Crap" it was almost a sandstorm but mroe like gravel being blown at you, i had to roll up my windows and i cant wait for the scracthes on the car to appear in the morning light ;-), also before that line came through i had been on the direct path of the beatrice storm and only to be fed up with the tornado reports from beatrice storm i get all the way down there and the storm CRAPS OUT! figures" anyways encountered some strong winds, couple of signs blown over , and it was cool to see muddy dirt getting kicked up under the mush line stuff going east, pretty cool pics of clouds but thats all i can really report... im working on pics"

Bring on the next chase im bound to win sooner or later ;-) :D

EDIT:( Pics and Account Now Up At ) http://www.stormchaserdan.com/cyclone_dan_2006_photos.htm

Scott Currens

04-06-2006, 10:45 PM

I was able to observe about 20 minutes worth of a long-lived tornadic supercell near Clay Center, KS. The supercell raced NNE at 45 mph, so 20 minutes was all I could manage. It produced 3 tornadoes in that short time frame, two were so so, but the third developed into what appered to be a wedge as it raced away from me.
http://www.violentplains.com/Pictures/060406_002.JPG

www.violentplains.com (http://www.violentplains.com)

Scott Currens

Travis Klanecky

04-06-2006, 10:52 PM

Seemed like about every chaser in the world was somewhere between Clay Center and Marysville. It was actually quite tough to travel with so much traffic. Especially those that would partially park on the shoulder, but leave part of there vehicle on the road. My crew first intercepted the wall cloud near Abilene and rode NNE to the NE/KS border. We came across two funnel clouds to our N and NW about 8 miles NNE of Abilene. Unfortunately, was not able to get out and get any stills since we were just fighting to keep up with the storms. I did get a little video of it though. From the looks of things, the funnel directly to our north never touched down, but the one to our NW may have. We were unable to tell because it became lost in the high precip. This may have been the one that eventually got to Clay Center. Unfortunately, working through the road system dropped us well behind and we arrived in Clay Center just in time to see multiple emergency vehicles head to the west of town.

Our crew continued to head NNE into Washington Co. figuring that we were stuck in between the storm now well to the north and the one hailing on Manhattan. As we arrived in the town of Barnes, we made the last minute decision to continue to head east to HW77. Had we turned north on 148, we would have had a nice view like Doug's picture above. Unfortunately, we didn't notice what had quickly shown up directly behind us until after passing the 148 turn. Probably should have paid more attention to the 50 guys in Barnes out of their vehicles and cameras set up. I believe this is the tornado that eventually got to Hanover.

By the time we reached Marysville, there was some more activity to our west as the updraft was working hard once again. But just to the north of Marysville, a stupid train decided that it had to get going just then. So we were stuck there for about 10 minutes. Our other crew was able to catch up to us and tell us all about the tornado that they captured to the south of Hanover. As we crossed into Nebraska we eventually hit the heavy precip and we all know what happened to the storms from there.

So all in all, it was an exciting chase, but from looking at the pictures above, we just barely missed some great tornadoes. Hope next time they will be quite a bit slower. I would like to get out of the car and stretch every once in a while. Not to mention take a picture or two. Can't wait to read the other chase accounts in the upcoming days. Sounds like a lot of people got a good look at these storms. I pray that there were no injuries from the tornadoes and that every one is ok.

bbarjenbruch

04-06-2006, 11:04 PM

My chase group and I were on the same storms, but not until they crossed the border into Gage county. Honestly would have had a perfect view of the "multi vortex tornado" near Odell, but had a smaller cell moving in for a merger at that exact time frame and it totally obscured the wall from view for about ten minutes. When we could finally see the beautiful wall again, it was due west and partially rain wrapped, but really hauling to the North (nothing new).

Followed it for a while and eventually we were located about 2 miles west of it with a solid funnel reaching toward the ground (perhaps in contact), but I couldn't tell too well as I was trying to watch the road at the same time and had a couple hills in the way. The new storm was quickly rolling in on us from the South so we booked it East, at one point, debris from the torando was falling around us which was a crazy experience. After getting out of the way of storm 2, the wall cloud became evident to our SSW and was bearing down on us this time. Inflow was great, and a large funnel was once again reaching downward but I was busy driving away from it at 80 and couldn't really stop to look back until the rotation became rainwrapped once again.

After this, yet another cell slightly farther east was headed in. We were trying to get into position, ran into bad road network suddenly, and looked up and slightly North to see a well developed meso centered almost right above us. Maybe a quarter mile to the North was a tight rotation, but it did not descent very far. Inflow into this beast was screaming, and it was warned about a minute after it developed on top of us (NE Gage County). However, with a dead end, and minimum maintenance roads going both North and South, we were forced for the second chase in a row to take the brunt of the hook echo precip. Luckily, hail was minimal. Just some heavy rain. And also, this chase, we weren't pinned due to poor map reading, but rather because the chasers had become the chased for a bit.

I hate when that happens, but I guess it's just a fact of chasing. Luckily, what we ended up underneath wasn't the wedge it could have been. For now, I'm mentally exhausted and time for some sleep. Also... next time, I'm not driving!! haha

Darin Brunin

04-06-2006, 11:26 PM

Dick McGowan, Eric B'Hymer, Jordan Wrecke, and I managed to capture two tornadoes today in Clay Co. KS. Both were on the ground at the same time. One about a mile to our east and one a mile to our west. One was a classic stovepipe and looked a lot like the Big Springs Nebraska tornado a few years ago. Here are a few pics. These photos of the tornadoes were near Manchester,

Stovepipe
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v226/bruninda/stove1b.jpg

roping out
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v226/bruninda/rope.jpg

tornado to our west..will get better vid capture later
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v226/bruninda/west1.jpg

All in all not a bad chase day...might have seen a few more touchdowns near Clay Center.

Shawna Davies

04-06-2006, 11:37 PM

Jon Davies and I chased NC Kansas near Salina this afternoon. Initially, we were on the Lincoln County storm, but let it go as it was moving away from us at 50+ MPH. We then picked up the McPherson County storm and followed it N/NE past Salina. After nearly getting munched by a fast moving meso and gust front, we followed a new meso that developed E/SE of the original one and watched what may have been a F0 type circulation pass 1/4 mile to our west in rapidly rotating rain curtains.

We followed this some distance toward Manchester (15 miles N/NW of Abilene), and saw it produce a tornado in low contrast to our north for several minutes. At one point, this had the appearance of a narrow cone or stovepipe, then began to lift and rope out. This tornado was probably located roughly 3 miles N/E of Manchester around 4:15 P.M. The storm continued moving north at such a rapid pace that we could not stay with it, and opted to intercept another supercell near Junction City that was non-tornadic before ending our chase.

Here are a few pictures of the Manchester tornado.

Wide Shot (of stovepipe, looking N/NW):

http://members.cox.net/jdavies1/ManchesterTorSH.jpg

Shots of the tornado toward the end of it's life cycle:

http://members.cox.net/jdavies1/ManchesterTor1JD.jpg

http://members.cox.net/jdavies1/ManchesterTor2JD.jpg

This was a fun chase. However, I'm now ready for the late spring SLOW MOVERS!!!!

(Links Fixed)

:) Shawna Helt

J.B. Dixon

04-06-2006, 11:50 PM

A very successful chase today, but it wasn't without almost making wrong choices. Met up with Randy Chamberlain in Beatrice about 12:30 as the watch box went up. Mike Hollingshead pulls up, much to our pleasant suprise. Headed south on 81 from Hebron as the towers were going up to our SW. Which one to get to?? After heading west from Belleville on Hwy 36 and taking a look at the cell(s) ahead of the Salina cell, we weren't very impressed. THe Salina storm seemed to be the obvious play, but we had to get 50+ miles east....quickly. After Buford T. Justice gave us a scare E. of Belleville, we finally got through Washington and then south on 148 to Barnes to see what was left of the TOR warned storm coming north. THis was where things really began to take shape.

Barnes, KS wall cloud (http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i158/jbdixon/4.jpg)

We raced back north towards 36 parallel to the developing wall cloud. I had heard NOAA Radio mentioning a report of a chaser-confirmed tornado on the ground near Barnes.....did we miss something? It wasn't long after getting back to the 148/36 intersection that golfballs started coming down. Randy and I left Mike at this point and jogged a mile east, pausing to take a quick video grab....still not toradoing approx. 5:25ish. No more did I get back out on the road heading east when I notice W-bound traffic slowing to a stop. I knew it was ugly behind us, so I checked the driver's side mirror.....tornado! Saw it already touched down approx. 2 mi. west of us on Hwy 36. We chased the tornado paralleling it on blacktop south of Bremen. The picture link shows the tornado about 2/3 into it's life cycle before roping out NW of Bremen. It pays to put one camera down instead of trying to do two things at once......it's far from great, but.... (anyone know how I can edit out those power lines?)

Hanover/Bremen tornado (http://s71.photobucket.com/albums/i158/jbdixon/?action=view¤t=8ab73556.jpg)

Congrats to Randy Chamberlain for officially losing his tornado virginity on this one! Huge thanks to Mike H. for letting us look in on the Baron XM out there. We all made the right decisions because of it.

One last Chaser Safety note: I don't think I would call out a lisence plate if it wasn't so obvious, but.....It is NOT recommended to come to a complete dead stop to look at a storm when you are in the middle of a U.S. Highway. :blink: Northbound, Hwy 77, 2 miles N of Marrysville, brown Chevy Blazer, MO plates 'TORN8O'. That is all.

Ryan McGinnis

04-06-2006, 11:56 PM

Had a really fun chase today. Started out in KBIE, then scooted east to Hebron. Eventually figured the high LCLs and dry air up in Nebraska (60 Tds my foot!) weren't going to do me any good, so I dropped down into Kansas on 81. Caught the cell of the day, but got behind instead of in front of it. At one point I had to choose whether to punch it and try to beat it to Clay Center on 24 or to wait it out just west of Idana. Chose to wait it out -- talked a couple of truckers into waiting, too. Once the circulation had passed over 24, I jetted to Clay Center. Debris everywhere out by the airport. Saw at least one home pretty totalled, and metal sheeting from a disintegrated barn or shed spread out over a good half mile. Trees uprooted as well. Bopped north on 15 from Clay Center, then stairstepped NE on the county roads. Finally saw the tornado in a low contrast type deal about 5 miles away when I got near 36. From funnel to touchdown in about a minute, then from thin funnel to a stovepipe for a couple more. After that it either got wrapped in rain (remember, we're looking from the south) or lifted. Saw some more damage when we rejoined the highway east of Washington. Followed it north a bit more on 77, but there wasn't much to see from there.

Wish I could've got photos of the tube, but I needed a telephoto to do that, and didn't have one. My friend did, but he had to shoot while we were moving because there was traffic behind me and nowhere to pull off on the old county road we were on, so they came out blurry. We did have a ton of fun, though!

http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/4799/img85005yu.jpg

Shot looking north-northeast from just north of Clay Center. I wasn't going to drive much into this until I watched it a bit, as our radar wasn't updating (no good cell coverage), and I could look straight up and see the whole vault of convection rotating right above me. :) Man, that's quite a sight, looking straight up 40,000 feet, and seeing the base right above and the knuckles peeking out in the stratosphere and everything moving in different directions. Hope everyone in Clay Center came out of this one okay.

Joey Ketcham

04-07-2006, 12:10 AM

Tyler, Matt, Chris and I chased SE Kansas. Didn't see any tornadoes, saw many funnel clouds and wall clouds. This is a wall cloud taken near the Mound Valley KS Recreation Area.

http://www.kschaser.com/wallcloud.jpg

Mike Hollingshead

04-07-2006, 12:11 AM

http://www.extremeinstability.com/stormpics/2006/06-4-6-5553b.jpg

http://www.extremeinstability.com/stormpics/2006/06-4-6-5555b.jpg

It is very near Hanover in these. I'll have to get some vid caps up of the close enounter right before these.

http://www.extremeinstability.com/stormpics/2006/06-4-6-5556b.jpg

1 minute and 8 seconds passes between the first image on here and this last one....for what it's worth.

Bill Tabor

04-07-2006, 12:18 AM

EDIT: I just updated my website with a few pictures from April 1st and 6th. No big deal - no giant tornadoes but a shot of hail and a couple of somewhat interesting storm shots.

Hopefully this crazy year will pull a bit back into the southern plains and give me a shot of chasing in Tx or outside of the hills and trees.

http://www.tornadoxtreme.com/2006_Chases/A.../april_1-6.html (http://www.tornadoxtreme.com/2006_Chases/April_1-6/april_1-6.html)

http://www.tornadoxtreme.com/2006_Chases/April_1-6/IMG_1178_filtered.JPG

Original Post Follows:
Well I can't believe I'm posting this because I didn't think I was chasing today. I'll try and keep this short - but you know how I am. :) Anyway I'm sitting here about 6:00 at the house and David Douglas calls and says are you watching the Burnett storm, and I say 'What?'. Anyway about the only cell in TX (pretty large and severe warned) formed just northwest of my house in Cedar Park. I could look out my back window and see it. I had been watching all the northern stuff on radar at the time. Anyway I decided to throw all the stuff in the car and take a leisurely trip up (about 5 to 10 miles) to this apparent hail storm. This was the quickest I ever left because the vehicle is all set up. Just pick up a few things and walk out. Plugged some stuff in and away. Shot up to Liberty Hill near what is called Seward Junction where now on Threatnet the one cell had split into 3. The one in the back for awhile was indicating 3" hail. I moved around a bit trying to find the best place to watch. Finally I found a good spot on a hill just west of hwy 183 as the sun was just above the horizon with storm in foreground slightly oriented to south of due west. It was slowly approaching. I was watching the very intense light gray core just obviously dumping rain and hail. However suddenly just to the left of that feature and emerging from it I could see a much darker feature shaped basically like a cylinder and it was all the way on the ground. I was saying 'No way, it can't be'. I must have said that several times to my self along with 'What the!'. As seconds and a minute or so passed the feature got further away from the precip core and at the bottom it appeared to have swirling precipitation. This whole thing was estimated 7 to 10 miles (5 at the closest) away. I thought I could see small vortices at the ground level swirling, but it also appeared to be violent motion. I went from almost falling asleep to adrenalin pumping. I was on the phone with Bill Combes who was on his way up from my southeast but he was still pretty distant and couldn't see that area yet. It looked so possibly believable that it made me worried as it approached the urban area so I decided I better call it in - which I did. I'm sure the guy thought I was nuts. I don't think it was showing much rotation at the time, but had been a meso earlier. Threatnet didn't have anything for it at the time - even any shear. I tried to explain it to the NWS dude and just told him - I'm not positive it's a tornado, but just keep an eye on it as this is very suspicious. The whole thing lasted a little over a minute and I didn't bother to grab my camera or camcorder. I was just in awe, and was really trying to figure out if it was legit. I didn't want to miss any of it because if real I figured it wouldn't last long. It didn't either. After awhile it lifts above the ground and I can see clearer air underneath. It then takes on a wallcloud shape for awhile and finally as I'm talking with Bill Combes on the phone turns into what looks like a funnel. Anyway, I start headed over to where he is ( back to the south). I catch up and we are watching the 'feature' which he agrees is a wallcloud. Precip begins to fall and we start getting some lightning. A few minutes later I decide to head home (almost directly on intercept toward the wall cloud) and immediately Threatnet give me a shear marker for the feature (area of interest) - sure enough at 69knots. Not much, but kind of confirms the whole thing as not some outflow crap. Oh yeah, the time I saw this tornado like thing was close to 7:45, but unfortunately (stupid me) I forgot to look. Guess the NWS dude would know and I contacted him directly after it ended. If his radar was delayed he wouldn't be seeing it until about then anyway. Hmm they probably aren't delayed much. Ok, so I take it on home with severe thunderstorm warning and area of rotation approraching and suddenly the lightning starts getting intense. There are numerous cloud to ground with a few violent staccato branching flashes mixed in. It begins to look a bit intimidating. At that point hail starts falling and it was pretty much quite a bit of nickel hail.

So that's it! Excitement in Cedar Park when I thought I was gonna get completely skunked. It's a shame the feature was distant and I didn't get a vid cam on it to determine and show motion. Sometimes just somewhat ordinary storms produce tornadoes. This was actually a severe storm, and it actually strengthened and grew after what I saw was a potential tornado. No, I can't say - definite tornado, but I am about 80% sure and I've seen enough of them to have a clue. It just blows your mind when you see something like this when you had absolutely no preconceptions.

Hey if anyone has any radar around this time frame ( I think 7:45cd) I'd love to see it. I would estimate it to be the area 5 to 10 miles wsw of Seward Junction.

Brian Emfinger

04-07-2006, 12:41 AM

chased se oklahoma as part of job responsibilities (tv photographer) so wasnt free to go where i wanted. Nevertheless i still managed to have a decent day. Met up with the storm coming out of Pittsburgh county, ok. Got to Quinton and saw a impressive storm to my west.
http://realclearwx.com/images/storm1.JPG

The storm was really nice and i will put some time lapse of storm structure later on here. Around 715 i took below picture looking NW from Whitefield.
http://realclearwx.com/images/storm2.JPG

Was anyone else on this storm? I saw a report from the same time of a brief tornado touchdown from the same direction this picture is looking. I was too far away to verify if it was/wasnt a tornado...

http://realclearwx.com/images/storm3.JPG

Dustin Wilcox

04-07-2006, 12:46 AM

Saw the Hanover Tornado from start until rope stage chase partner was actually on the news in Omaha with his video of it earlier. Will post vid captures later. Anyone else run into the mad heard of cattle blocking the road?? And I hope someone had time to stop and get stills of those mammutus WOW!!!

fplowman

04-07-2006, 01:01 AM

Wow! some really great pics! I left KC at around 11am and headed for Rulo, Went west heading for the edge of the triple.

Ended up hanging out for a few around Steel City then decided to head South. Ended up in Barnes as Baron gave me a good target. This is a pic of the wall cloud from Hwy 9 in between Barnes and GreenLeaf looking south.
[attachmentid=82]

I traveled down a gravel / dirt road to flank to the East and position myself to the SE. I got right up close and personal with the Wall cloud. It went right over me and I must say There were a few moments I was somewhat in fear for my safety, for good reason I suppose. Right after it passed over me it dropped a nice tornado B)

[attachmentid=83]

[attachmentid=81]

[attachmentid=84]

I must say the pic Mike has as usual is Fantastic! I have some video of the rotating wall cloud pasing over that reminds me of his pic.. After reviewing it I see a tornado to the right of my footage I was concentrating on..lol.. Strange how we get to focused on other things and miss the obvious. Ill have to get the video up and streaming for everyone to see.. Its short but its Awesome!

Lost the tornado as it spun up by Hanover Bremen I was of course driving north to catch up! wish I coud have captured that footage too. Congrats to all that caught a tube.. seemed short lived that the action was on though.

Mikel Shively

04-07-2006, 02:09 AM

I was on the Hanover tornado as well. I wont post a log here, because it is much like alot of other people's that were on this storm, but my full log and a 30 second video clip is on my website (http://www.twisterchase.com).

From the video
http://www.twisterchase.com/Image017.jpg

Mike S

Bryce Stone

04-07-2006, 02:10 AM

Ben Tucker

04-07-2006, 02:17 AM

Adam Holle and I left Lincoln around 12:30 pm and headed towards Beatrice. We updated data at the the Beatrice library and hung loose for a an hour or so. It was rather clear that the dryline firing was taking place an hour or so to our west. We got antsy and headed south and west to an area about 10 miles west of Beleville, Ks. on HWY 36. I had a really sharp nowcaster who persuaded us to forget about the cell to our west and focus on the cell to our direct south around the Concordia area at that time - moving straight north.

We booked it east towards Washington due to tornadic reports approx. 25 miles to the south of Washington. By the time we reached Wash the storm was directly to our south prolly 5-8 miles. We headed south out of Wash trying to punch thru to get a glimpe but it was too risky so we headed back to Wash to let the frontal portion pass.

Shortly thereafter we heard reports of a "spotter trained eye" tornado in a location just to our southeast. We then headed straight east outta Wash and punched thought the SW wrap and to our amazement, the tornado appeared rather quickly. It was all by itself and seemed suped high based (however, we were overlooking a valley) - did anyone else think this was abnormally hgih based tube?

We videoed it until the rope stage and tried to follow it north towards the KS/NE state line. We quickly became engulfed from our south and west by a rookie cell that was VERY intense. We were able to avoid it by finding a nice east/west route - we booked it straight east and avoided the worst of it.

From there we headed back towards home base Lincoln. We were contacted by Ch. 8 news and hooked up with them in Cortland on 77 - they used our footage @ 10 tonight and interviewed my buddy/chase partner Adam.

By the way there is just something about that feeling you get when you are on a country raod in Kansas and you can sense/feel the instabilty in the air. We went thru Narka, KS enroute to our target and man they have that crazy looking water tower in that small town out in the sticks...and then put a dark gray looking sky behind it...kinda creepy. Drive that route sometime between Munden and Mahaska and you can see the reminants from tornado damage going back from a period of prolly 1-5 years - its gotta be one of those top 2 or 3 trivial spots in the country.

This pic is from my cell phone - bad quality. We will post the good digital images and video 2morrow.

Jeff Snyder

04-07-2006, 02:34 AM

I chased with several folks today (Gabe, Brandon; then caravaned with JR, Justin, Adam, and Robin) in northeastern OK and extreme southeastern KS. We targeted Bartlesville, and were quite pleased to see that hte storms that developed near I35 north of OKC were taking aim at our location. We meandered north from Bartlesville towards Dewey to get a good view of the storm as it approached. We knew it was tornado-warned, and the south side of the updraft was quite rigid. However, in time, it's radar appearance dropped... We headed north into extreme southern KS (in Carney), to watch this storm further. There was plenty of turbulent motion, but nothing too organized. We then dropped back south into OK, as radar showed addl storms developed that way. There was a nice RFD occlussion with the storm near the OK/KS border, but we thought that a storm to that one's south that was precipitating into the inflow of the that northern storm would squash the chances for a tornado with that one... So, we dropped south further, hearing of a new tornado-warned supercell southwest of Bartlesville. After getting to just east of Nowata, everything looked quite poor. With a nowcast update from Phil H., we dropped south again, hoping to catch a tornado-warned supercell very near the Tulsa 88D / radar site. We punched the core, making it to Pryor before trying to head east. At this time, the supercell was tornado warned again... On our way out of Pryor, we experienced very strong RFD winds, breaking a small tree not too far ahead of us. The storm exhibited a pretty nice RFD clear slot, but it was quite wet at that time. We tried to keep up with it, but we lost it on the most pathetic of roads that is Hwy 20 south of Langley (east of Lake Hudson).

The somewhat saving grace was experiencing the intense RFD in Pryor. In all, however,this chase falls in line with the other high-hype chases of the year (including 3/30 and 4/1), which is disappointment and frustration. I wish I had the will-power to just stay away from these early season setups, since they almost always seem to fail for one reason or another. Congrats to those who were able to bag today... Bring on May.

Jason A.C. Brock

04-07-2006, 04:32 AM

Chased the central Oklahoma cell from 177 just north of I-44 to U.S. 75 at Copan. There I waited and caught the next cell in line from the south and followed it to northeast of Dennis, Kansas a ways. I finally gave up and came back home when the storms started picking up speed back to 55 MPH. Saw a very nice triple rainbow along the way, with one rainbow nearly on the ground. Never saw any tornadoes, even though the local radio stations kept saying that a tornado had been on the ground for 30 minutes with the storm in Osage county. Noticed this further up north in Kansas as well. I'd be looking right at the updraft when radio stations claimed to have tornadoes on the ground.

Whatever tornadoes occurred in NE Oklahoma must have been fairly brief. The wind-whipped fires west of U.S. 75 were impressive when I came through. The smoke rising into the updraft base from one of the fires looked kinda like a tornado, and I was tempted to take a picture . . . but I decided not to cheat on the photography. :unsure:

I was actually able to keep up with the storms much better than I had anticipated, and I didn't even take my rocket booster. I noticed OKC's Channel 4 SUV had theirs firmly attatched, and blowing full speed, though. Man, those guys drive fast.

The only other thing of interest that happened was that I was trying to read the map on highway 10 west of U.S. 75 and ran off the road. I fortunately was able to stop before hitting a stand of trees. Thought for sure that I was stuck, as the roadside was muddy and the car was very tilted sideways, but I managed to rock it out and slide backwards and sideways back onto the road. At least no one saw me. :D I guess that after years of reading the map while driving I learned my lesson.
[/b]

Why do I look Hollingshead photos and then even wonder why I try to take pics of storms at all? LOL
I chased the same cells as Bryce but settled for the cells a tad further South. I followed one newly formed cell North of Tulsa towards Talala. I filmed a nice area of rotation and what for awhile looked like a large funnel about 3/4 of the way to the ground and also looked very intimidating.
A local sheriff I believe it was pulled along side me on 169 and We watched the cell and decided to go East. Since I didnt know the area too well the sheriff gave me an escort accros some small back country roads which also led me to meet up with a chaser friend of Mine from the OKC area. This storm would race NE at times on XM WX WORX to 70 mph but more around 55. Still it was very hard to keep up with the cells.
I dont believe there were anything more than brief touchdowns in Oklahoma but I would like to see photos of the tornado that touched down over Lake Eufalua.
The wall cloud and rotation I filmed may have prompted the tornado warning in that area however. Looking back at video briefly I dont see anything in contact with the ground but still looked very menacing at times. Storm also tried to get a nice bell shaped and better wrapped meso but I decided to leave the cell as it quickly weakened and head towards cell to the South that would leave me in the dust. Literally. A huge dust cloud came into Tulsa on my way home along with a wildfire West of town. There was also a small wildfire near Chickasha on the way back to the Falls.

Ill have photos and perhaps a brief timelapse up at http://www/texhomastormchasers.com Later this Friday evening. Ill also have some pics from 4/1/06 of the April fools crapfest in Cottle County to Wilbarger county Texas up. I thought I had published them but evidently they need to be redone.

Things about this chase
1. incredible storm speeds from 55-70 mph.
2. People in OKC metro driving 55 in 60-70 mph speed zones.
3. Police escort in parts of NE Oklahoma :-)
4. Meeting girl at McDonalds on the way home in Tulsa who is from Electra Texas :-p
5. Massive dust storm in OKC area some visbilities along I-44 were down to only feet.
6. Winds behind dryline were amazing and frustrating to fight against. My TV antenna which has taken 100 mph winds for some reason kept blowing off. I guess driving into a 55mph wind at 75 mph will do that huh?
7. Chase friend actually found me in the middle of nowhere.
8. Another chaser friend of mine caught some cells near Austin Texas which we were hoping for but were not holding out much luck. Goes to show ya......ya never know and ya cant see storms sitting at home. :-)

Thanks to those who nowcasted today even tho it was limited.
Total chase miles 593

Mike Hollingshead is the greatest severe weather photographer in the history of mankind!

JHadorn

04-07-2006, 05:50 AM

Beatrice nearly took a direct hit, but the storm could never connect any funnels with the ground. Rotating wall cloud passed right over work and I did manage to get a quick photo of one of its funnels. The funnel looked a lot better before I took the photo. I also believe I briefly witnessed the Odell multi-vortex at the end of its life.

It's next to impossible to take a decent picture from inside a building with only one angle to view anything from. I can't really complain, though. I thought I was going to miss out on all the fun.

Pictures:

http://www.thespiralingshape.org/img/wx/060406/originals/

Edward Ballou

04-07-2006, 09:11 AM

352 miles @ $2.59 a gallon.....and I got my car wet.

Gotta love the first chase of the year. Got out of Brookings at about 4 pm and booked down I-29 to Sioux City where I made the usual stop at Chick Fil-A. Noticed some towers going up just after they issued a tornado watch for Turner County in SD. It was getting darker already so I decided to get back to SD and meet the storms in Yankton. Saw one good CG strike there and some pretty intense rain, and a smidgeoning of hail. Headed back home with an annoying crosswind that totally sucked on my mileage getting back to 29 from 90. My arm began to hurt after a while because I was pulling against the wind. Will post the few pictures I got later.

[attachmentid=102][attachmentid=103]

Mike Peregrine

04-07-2006, 09:45 AM

Wow - drooling over some of these shots! ... congratulations to the baggers in Washington Co ... Made it over to Marysville in time for the southern tor-warned Marshall Co. storm, which we followed up to Beatrice, but not in time to see the northern, more prolific tor-machine on the ground. Got some neat shots of the meso along with a pretty cool funnel (along with lots of other chasers) that I'll post later. Thanks both to Mike Johnston and Dr. Dewey for their help. Going to keep reading these awesome reports in the meantime.

To top my evening off, the U-joint went out of my rig on the way home ... nice. We managed to get the car to my brother's body shop, which I'm glad is now located right on highway 36 in Kansas ... but I'm without a chasemobile for a couple days! ... By the way, he is inundated right now with hail jobs from 3/12 hail in St. Joe, so sometimes the weather really is good for business -

Just a couple pics ... funnel is on the vidcam and I don't have time to freeze it -

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v143/mikeperegrine/webMarshallCo0014.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v143/mikeperegrine/webMarshallCo0018.jpg

Lots of rolling, boiling gust fronts - -

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v143/mikeperegrine/webMarshallCo0030.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v143/mikeperegrine/webMarshallCo0003.jpg

Jason McKittrick

04-07-2006, 10:26 AM

Washington, KS was my target today. Got there about 1:30PM, was getting a little impatient having to remind myself how early it was. Went to the Washington county reservoir for a little while, quite a beautiful lake but more or less requires a 4WD to get to. Waited there until cap broke around 3PM. We then headed back to Washington, paved roads. Tried to bring WXWORX up to get an exact position on the Salina storm. Murphy law is alive and well 'ERR Deactivation signal received'. Called XM everything on there end was set up properly they sent a new activation signal but that did not do anything. So I guess we'll have to rely on my nowcasters. Called Bill Turner in Amarillo, Oops fire warning he has to go in to work to give evacuation orders for Amarillo. Well I still have Steve Sempeck in Omaha but he was unavailable at the time so instead of heading south to Clay Center we went west toward the updrafts we could see by Beloit. When we got to Belleville we didn't see anything that was very well organized. Headed north toward Hebron, still pretty high based, not much structure. Then finally a nowcast call, storm in Clay County KS Tornado warned. We doubled back, going to Fairbury and back south to our original target of Washington. Storm was still south a little ways so we decided to get fuel. There are two gas stations in town, one had a line the other was empty, note to self if one station is crowded and the other is empty there must be a reason. The clerk was a halfwit, it took 4 tries before she figured out how to turn the pump on for us, and after she did it took 3min to pump 1.9 gallons of gas, the clerks response, "Well maybe were out of gas, I've never been here when we ran out of gas". So with Murphy in our back seat my chase partner, Don Bonfiglio and I hopped back in and headed for Maryville to get on the east side of the storm. Just as we reached the county line the rain bands pulled back and revealed a beautiful Meso, wall cloud and funnel. After watching along highway 36 for 5 or 10 minutes, we headed for highway 77 to follow the storm as it moved north, also said a little prayer that there wouldn't be a train where we encountered one earlier in the afternoon north of Maryville. I guess we must have left Murphy along the side of road in Washington county, because it appeared that our luck was changing, no train. We got about 10 miles north of Maryville and then it appeared, our first catch since May 29th, 2004. A beautiful cone shaped tornado about 3 or 4 miles west of highway 77 near Breman, KS. We moved slowly north and watched it rope out near the Nebraska boarder. We continued north following the Meso the best we could on some back roads which proved to be halfway descent. Last dramatic view of the meso was over Beatrice, no tornado bust some tremendous rotation. We continued north northeast along the back roads in Gage county paralleling the wall cloud, which was hard to see at times due to the numerous cell mergers that were now occurring. We went through Adams, NE, no damage when we were there, but news stations here in Omaha had damage video on the news last night. We definitely didn't see that tornado and we were in perfect position. I'll be interested to see what they determine in the NWS survey, since the storm by that time seemed to be becoming more outflow dominant.

I will try to figure out how to add photos later today.

afischer

04-07-2006, 10:27 AM

I too was fortunate to intercept the NC KS tornadic supercell. The storm surprised me NE of Salina in how quickly it organized into a major storm. I headed north on 15 and first spotted the "Manchester tornado" in low contrast to my WSW at 4:15pm. It looked like a dark blue truncated stovepipe at this point. I promptly headed west on Bob's road for a closer vantage point, concentrating on driving.. thus I came away from this with marginally good video and no photos but for the segmented rope out (4:21pm, by then one mile west of my location). The structure of the meso at this time was a sight to behold, including a stumpy tail cloud feeding into a small, cylindrical, ground-scraping low-level meso... with the "tall" tornado emanating from behind this feature as noted by someone else. The stark white collar cloud also had some wild motions, including an anticyclonic funnel. I stayed with the storm a bit longer.. very nice structure remained (as shown in Scott Currens' photo) and things got a little hairy as I passed thru Clay Center. I broke off south of Green to try and intercept a 65 mile-an-hour tornado-warned supercell approaching Manhattan. I'll have some pix online after a while.

Brett Roberts

04-07-2006, 12:05 PM

This was my first halfway "serious" chase attempt -- at least in terms of distance and time -- and was hindered (much like last week) by the fact that Thursday is the one weekday I absolutely cannot afford to miss an afternoon class from 2-3. Walking back to the dorm from class right after 3, it was apparent that the dryline had just swept through OUN with clear skies and low humidity but plenty of cumulus just east. After grabbing the weather radio I immediately headed out with Kristina Kelley (another freshman here) up I-35, east on I-240 and I-40 to Hwy 377 (at which point we'd overtaken the dryline but nothing of any significance was visible except for the supercell well northeast that eventually became TOR-warned for Osage/Washington). Then up 377 to Stroud, where it appeared something was trying to get its act together almost directly overhead, so we headed quickly northeast on I-44 towards Tulsa (admittedly still somewhat intending to catch up with the existing cell at least 30 miles off -- yes, I have a lot to learn :D), staying underneath the developing cell for the duration. Finally, upon reaching Tulsa we rode up Hwy 75 for about 10 miles before pulling off on a side road and watching the storm pass over us. I saw and photographed what I believe to have been a wall cloud (attached) from this location, though there were certainly no signs of significant rotation and no funnel. After about 20 minutes there the view towards the east was breathtaking, at least for a native Easterner new to Oklahoma like myself... three distinct, explosive supercells lined up from southwest to northeast (the northernmost being the Osage/Washington Co. one) and beautiful mammatus under the anvil of the one that had just passed over. Though we didn't see anything tornadic nor did we experience high winds or hail, I considered it a greatly enjoyable first stab at chasing thanks to the photographic opportunities under and after the storm.

Adam Holle

04-07-2006, 01:43 PM

[attachmentid=92]

Hanover KS Tornado

Ben Tucker Chase partner(refer to above post)

Brian Hartmann

04-07-2006, 03:29 PM

It indeed feels good to be back on the plains again. After a 5 year hiatus in chasing (very few tornadoes in Fairbanks, AK) I am back here again and had storms dropped into my lap.

After leaving work at 4:00 PM I was able to track along with the Osage Co. storm and got into a decent position by the time I hit Dewey. Watched it go through its paces between Dewey and Copan and followed it on US 75 as far as the OK/KS border where I watched roll out of the state. Dozens of other chasers and locals were stopped along the road as well. Hooray for wide shoulders and broad, gentle ditches.

Heading back towards home, I encountered the cell that blasted north from Bartlesville and witnessed some 60-70mph gusts which made visibility impossible. I finally got pulled off of US 75 at Highway 10 West and waited the 3 minutes it took for that beast to clear through. Watching that later on the radar loops was surreal.

Incredible storm speed and the only way people had a chance to keep up with them was some seridipidous road locations.

All in all, not bad for a backyard chase and my new bride was a bit disconcerted to see how charged up I was about getting back into chasing. She thinks that she has lost me for good.

Cheers,

Brian

Jay Cazel

04-07-2006, 06:09 PM

Mike Gribble and I left Wichita around 8:30 am headed up towards Junction City. The plan was to play the warm sector up in the northeast part of the state but the low keep moving more south and storms decided to go up just north of Wichita. So we headed back and intercepted the cell that was just coming out of McPherson.
[attachmentid=93]

Followed the storm on I-35 north right before Salina, trying to keep up with this cell was lots of fun. Headed back east on a county road until we hit Abilene got back on I-70 which due to road work slowed us down. Headed back north on hwy 15 stayed with the storm until Clay Center, stopped at some place called Twister Café and took a few shots and some video.
[attachmentid=101] [attachmentid=94] [attachmentid=95]

Going back east out of Clay Center trying to get ahead of this storm but the road network heading back north was non paved until we hit hwy 77 we tried one last attempt to catch back up with it but traffic and storm speed killed it.
[attachmentid=96] [attachmentid=97] [attachmentid=98]

Made it to Marysville and called it a night and headed back towards home and drove to back to Clay Center and got a few damage shots.
[attachmentid=99] [attachmentid=100]
After 12 plus hours out in it and 500 plus miles later and missing the EVERY tornado I am dead tired.

Again, I want to thank Mike for his forecast did a great job putting us were the storms where going to be just did not pan out.

Congrats to all who bagged tornados yesterday.

Benjamin Sipprell

04-07-2006, 08:34 PM

I can't read long posts ... so I'll keep mine short.

Set sights to north-central KS and kept a target of Marysville to check internet and then decide from there. I met up with two amatuers from Kansas City and we see a strong mesocyclone moving NNE out of Salina with a precipitation filling RFD ... I worry that the storm will become rain wrapped and lose its structure ... but it lasts and I decide to stay put and wait for the storm to come to me which is moving roughly 60 mph.

Sean McMullen and Dustin Wilcox dive southward into Marysville as the storm slides through Clay Center with what was like a heartbeat (a meso develops, dies, then develops again ...). We proceed south on 77 which jogs slightly east where we keep east on route 9 into Barnes, KS. Sirens blaring in Barnes, the RFD is indeed precip filled and looking to wrap around the main updraft ... some tense times we decide to race north on 148.

Racing north on 148 a sudden clearing occurs to the west ... based on storm review the mesocyclone intensified ingesting the air to the east and pushing the RFD back ... a cone drops from the storm and touches down out by Hanover. We approach US 36 where a heard of 20 to 30 cattle all muddy are piled on the road squeezed between to small rises on either side of 148. Some honking we push them out of the way ... ride east on 36 for one mile and turn north on a dirt road towards Hanover to see the tornado rope out.

We pressed further east on 36 before turning north on 77 back to Beatrice ... another tornado would touch down before the KS/NE border but we would be too far SE ... storms fizzled in my opinion because storms south and east choked off the flow, not to mention cold outflows from the storm ... everything got too cold.

EDIT: there are a couple of pages, use the arrows on top of the page
FYI: if you have been seeing video out of Barnes, KS/Hanover KS that's Sean's footage ... I'm driving the Jetta in front.

Pictures here:

http://www.atmos.uwyo.edu/~sipprell/nc_ks_tornado/index.htm

Additional: I do believe Beatrice was hit directly by a tornado at all as some may claim ... rather I believe straight-line winds were to blame for any damage in that area (same for Adams, KS) ... I didn't see any damage driving into Beatrice, but it was raining very hard ... no rotation is seen after the storm passes north of the KS/NE border

Russel Parsons

04-07-2006, 09:49 PM

I chased in three states yesterday, Northeast Oklahoma, Southeast Kansas and Southwest Missouri. I started out with a target area of Neodesha, Kansas. I sat in Neodesha until storms started firing up in north central Oklahoma, and I intercepted the Osage County Oklahoma storm near Copan, Oklahoma. I attempted to keep up with this storm, and finally caught it again north of Parsons, Kansas near South Mound, where it was producing a nice wall cloud. I didn't get to see any tornadoes today, but it was nice to get out and see some tornado warned storms, nonetheless. I put the rocket engines on the rental car, and intercepted the Cherokee County Kansas tornado warned storm near Asbury, Missouri. It was getting dark by this time, but I did manage to see a very large, broad wall cloud east of Asbury, Missouri.

Wall Cloud West Of South Mound, Kansas Or About 6 Miles North Of Parsons, Kansas

http://www.russparsonspictures.com/~photos/tn/810_1024.ts1144460598877.jpg

More photos can be found here Russ Parsons' Photo Site (http://www.russparsonspictures.com/20060406TriStateChase/)

Mike Hollingshead

04-07-2006, 11:21 PM

http://www.extremeinstability.com/stormpics/2006/06-4-6-12.jpg
Hanover tornado forming just south of highway 36.

http://www.extremeinstability.com/stormpics/2006/06-4-6-22.jpg
Same tornado as I got out of the way.

Rest Here (http://www.extremeinstability.com/06-4-6.htm)

James King

04-08-2006, 12:26 AM

Left Little Rock at 1:30 with a brand-new Panasonic GS250 after entire chase kit was stolen in March. DSL on the fritz, flying blind with no nowcasters until my brother got me up to date with a satellite report near Stillwater. Intended to wait at Fort Smith but got impatient (heavy cloud gauze) and set off for Tulsa. Cleared up quick. Caught the cell that was about to rake Nowata after finding Hwy 60 closed near Lake Oologah, unintentionally punching the core just past Childers on 28. Held back before taking off east on 10, which, as all of you know goes thirty miles due east without a north branch. Saw three well-formed wall clouds, one right after the other (strange), and marvelled at how slow the storms were moving (40mph according to the TV station I picked up at about 87 on the FM dial; best nowcasters I've had in a while, if'n you ask me).
I pulled within a couple of miles of the only remaining wall cloud, seeing a few wispy 'maybe' funnels, when a Craig County Deputy pulled me over to chat about storms. NO KIDDING! I sat for ten minutes with his car blocking my way back out onto the road while he mistakenly pointed out "serious rotation" in the following cold-core. I wanted to explain the difference between 'rotaion' and 'shear', but held my tongue. He finally took off when he saw a piece of scud that (didn't) look(ed) like a funnel. Over the next hill, I said the hell with it as I blew past him at eighty-five. He didn't move. Sherrifnadoes may have been reported, I don't know.
I joined another chaser (?) at Welch, and closed fast on the increasingly mean-looking wall cloud as the sun set, then began to hoot as a spotter reorted a tornado on the ground south of Chetopa. But a road block at a just-turned-over semi cost me another five minutes. It later occurred to me that I might have been in a rather bad position if it HADN'T been for the deputy's delay, but I think I would have gotten close to the only touchdown that storm made in OK. C'est la vie, or something that sounds like that. It went on to spawn some damage in Missouri, and I headed for home while watching some incredible lightning ahead of me as the Fort Smith storms I planned to catch sped ahead of me on I 40. I had fun, picked a good storm from many lesser ones, and my film, though not dramatic, apparently came from a much better camera than I've ever had. Thanks Mike H., I read all your posts in "equipment" concerning your camera quandary and chose the GS250. I only hope to grow up to be half the photographer you are.
All in all, not bad for early April.
This is going to be one hell of a season if the past two weeks are any indication.
"Anything for a weird life." - Zaphod Beeblebrox

bbarjenbruch

04-08-2006, 01:18 AM

Upon further review, the meso that had snuck up on me and my chase partners in NE Gage County and had a nice funnel out of it actually touched down... NWS confirmed F0 damage and a 200 yard wide tornado near the town of Adams Nebraska (not Kansas as previously mentioned).

When I go back and look at the velocity on the radar, there was a quite strong couplet present as the Beatrice cell merged with the newer one just to its ESE. What was extremely strange about this was that the couplet was present almost directly in the middle of the highest reflectivity. No wonder I was so damn confused when we were in heavy rain and watching a tornado bear down on us at 50 mph at the same time. I feel slightly lucky, and also happy to have one under the belt before April is even half over.

Great pics by the way from everyone else. I can't say that I have anything that compares to the stuff you guys have posted above.

John MacKay

04-08-2006, 02:22 AM

Congrats to those that caught tornadoes. Some nice pictures.

I was delayed in my chase because of a lecture, then the decision where to go with a rotating thunderstorm to miss Manhattan to the northwest but keep out of the way of an 80 mph-moving storm to the south moving toward Manhattan with the potential of very large hail.

Got out at rush hour, and took about 15 minutes to get to US 24 (sirens went off because of the tornado warning in Geary Co.). I get there just in time to be greeted by the racing storm to the south, with 1-1.5" hail falling at a scattered clip. Had to turn back into traffic at two left-turn lanes at two lights (both green in my direction with the left-turn light red) because the lights didn't change quickly enough (one person at the second one turned on a red, and I don't blame them with the hail coming down). I pulled off at the mall and looked at the southern storm as it merged with the other one. Saw some interesting junk clouds and photographed some quarter-sized hail, but LCL heights were way too high for anything.

I only drove 20 miles, and while I experienced severe weather, I hate running into hail. It doesn't help when the people in front of you drive abnormally during rush hour, even in Manhattan, KS.

Matthew Havin

04-08-2006, 04:23 AM

--Intense swearing and extremely profane words left out due to respect of others and mods/admins--

Well, from reading these excellent posts of others.....looks like many did well. Good job....great pics!

.....but I have you all beat! I think I finally had a "unique chase experience" that we all talk about but few ever have anymore with all the chasers on the road these days.

My chase buddy Gary and I headed out early to exit 328 on I-70 between Topeka and J-City and sat for a few hours playing around on gravel roads and watching some fire in the distance....fun stuff just to kill time.

Observed the storm west of Wichita on radar and waited......figuring eventually something would come out of it or some nearby cell. Then TOR WARN came out later and we shot off setting our goal for meeting up with the supe in Clay Co.........we raced NW to cross the Randolph Bridge on Tuttle Creek Lake on RT 16. At this time the cell was WSW of us and we planned on racing up US 77 to our north (hey, US 77 was my target road in previous posts, not bad!). But then............. GAME OVER!

We got over the crest and looked onto Randolph bridge and my buddy goes.....the bridge is closed. I said "what, no!" and as we got closer we realized we were screwed. One of those portable rescue cranes was blocking both lanes of traffic in the middle of the bridge and was getting a sunk car or boat or something up from the water of the lake. We sweared profusely.

The crane was like this but bigger:
http://www.craneoperator.com/images/Mishap...neRescued-2.jpg (http://www.craneoperator.com/images/Mishaps/RescueCraneRescued/LARGE/RescueCraneRescued-2.jpg)

We could see the supe that was 10-12 miles to our west. We could not see the base because of the next hill. The road path to fix our dilemma was 60 miles to get back on the supe. We knew we were done with the speed and storm direction. We sat on the hill looking west and waiting for the bridge to open. We sat for 5...10...15....20 minutes and eventually it opened up. But by then the cell was well north and being spotted by every man, woman, and child other than the blind near Barnes and Hanover. I figured out later I was right for not chasing after it for I would have had to go about 100+ mph to catch up..... no way!

In my years of chasing, I have never been so pissed off as I was Thursday. My general forecast idea for this event was fairly accurate 4 days out. My previous day forecast was for the right road (US 77). But when chasing, there is a surprise around every corner. My buddy Gary almost lost it. We met up with another cell in Manhattan but fully knew we had been played. The chase was over. For those that have missed a tornado due to trains, downed power lines, closed streets, tire blowouts, hitting various animals and getting your car disabled, flooded roads, and other mishaps ...... add this one to the list.

In a strange way though........ I do have to say this is one of the VERY reasons I love chasing. You just never know what you are gonna get or see.

Oh, and if any of you see anything on the web in news around Randolph (or Manhattan) area about what that was in the water..... PM me the story or the link. I would love to have it!

STAY AWAY FROM THOSE CRANES!!!!!!!!

Sean McMullen

04-08-2006, 01:32 PM

I wanted to clear something up for anybody who might of saw the story KETV in Omaha did on me and my footage. The story aired 6:00 Friday evening and while showing a clip of the tornado in it's mature stage they overlayed audio from when the tornado was roping out so it looks like I'm saying the tornado is roping out when it's definately not roping out. I was just worried people would think I don't know what I'm talking about so I wanted to explain that it was just an editing mistake. You can also hear my fiance saying it's roping out as well.

Edward Ballou

04-08-2006, 02:20 PM

Got a little close on this chase. I had seen some lowering in the clouds but had lost my data feed by this time. Was relying on the lightning to illuminate the sky. I already posted my account but got this picture forwarded eventually to me. Screen grab by Wally Hollander from Swift WX:

[attachmentid=109]

Now that I think about it...it could have hit me again as I turned north out of Yankton on 81 and it got pretty crappy again. I guess I got my car more than a little wet.

Carey Walton

04-08-2006, 04:29 PM

I started the day early watching some storms initiate SW of Superior, NE. After a while, they didn't look to promising, so I headed for Clay Center, KS. Here are a couple shots of the Hanover tornado.

While I was sitting there taking pictures, a nice local fellow pulled up in a rather battered pickup with not much for windows. He had come from where the tornado had just been, and he explained that he walked outside and got into his truck when he noticed stuff suddenly flying off of the roofs of the buildings and from then on, that tornado was all over him. He wasn't hurt and his truck is plus a few dents and minus a few windows. He also mentioned that he had never seen a tornado before and never expected that his first would be on top of him.

http://www.cwaltlabs.com/Hanover0.jpg

http://www.cwaltlabs.com/Hanover1.jpg

al pietrycha

04-08-2006, 05:53 PM

All,

Here's a picture (see url) I took as the Hanover tornado was crossing US HWY 36 and State HWY 148. The TOP NWSFO noted F2 damage at this interestection.

http://www.stormeyes.org/pietrycha/images/...s36hanover2.jpg (http://www.stormeyes.org/pietrycha/images/060406torus36hanover2.jpg)

--Al Pietrycha

Mike Hollingshead

04-09-2006, 01:28 AM

http://www.extremeinstability.com/06-4-6.htm

I added a video clip linked at the bottom of that page. I'm at the intersection Al mentions before I go east. I wondered if that was your jeep briefly on my vid as I drove east. I wish I would have pulled over right there, but I couldn't tell where exactly the tornado was going yet.

Here is the direct video link VIDEO (http://www.extremeinstability.com/stormpics/2006/06-4-6wmv.wmv)

One short part at the beginning is TL'd for a second(where the semi goes south). It isn't very long.

The video is 9 megs and 4 minutes and 16 seconds and it will not be online very long.

That is a damn cool still btw Al...sigh.

Tony Cook

04-10-2006, 12:52 AM

6 April 2006
Canadian/Lake Eufaula, OK

I finally left Austin, TX around 11a.m.CDT. My target was SE OK, which showed a more than adequate CAPE/Helicity combo on the 14Z (I think) RUC run. More importantly, it was within driving distance, unlike the higher risk areas to the North.

Convection finally began to fire to my NW ahead of the dryline, and slowly build to the S. I stopped in McAlester, OK, and watched towers building to the west. I then moved N to Canadian, OK, just W of Lake Eufaula, where I found a nice, elevated location to shoot the approaching storm. All images are taken looking W-SW along highway 69 in Canadian. All times below are CDT, and I need to verify them with my GPS log, as I don't really trust the timestamp on my camera.

The storm produced one wall cloud, which then seemed to split into two- time here is ~6:52.
http://home.austin.rr.com/evilolive/images/6Apr2006/wallSplit.jpg

I think the storm had a tornado warning by this time, but if not, a tornado warning went out shortly thereafter. The northern wall cloud produced a needle funnel at 6:53.
http://home.austin.rr.com/evilolive/images/6Apr2006/funnel1.jpg
http://home.austin.rr.com/evilolive/images/6Apr2006/towerFunnel.jpg

Then, the northern wall cloud tightened up 6:55
http://home.austin.rr.com/evilolive/images/6Apr2006/wall2.jpg

As it approached Hwy 69, the wall cloud began wrapping rain, and definitely looked as if it could be hiding a tornado. 6:59
http://home.austin.rr.com/evilolive/images/6Apr2006/wall3.jpg

Now, I finally realized just how quickly this storm was moving. I thought I could go North on 69, and then East on highway 9 to stay in front of the circulation. As soon as I got back on 69, the core of the storm crossed the highway, with small hail. I got to highway 9 and moved NE, but only about half a mile. I stopped because I was approaching a relatively small, narrow bridge which runs about 1/3rd of a mile over Lake Eufaula (and not very high over the lake, either), and I was getting cored. Before I stopped, I got one brief glance over my right shoulder (to my SW), to see the wall cloud, which now appeared to be a wall of water on the ground. I cannot say it was a tornado, because I got only the shortest glance at it.

I did a couple of U-turns before deciding to just sit it out at the junction of Hwy 9 and 9A, as there was no where to really run at this point. The wall of water was now just a white-out mess as it passed across Hwy 9 a mile or two to my east. Everything moved quickly NE, and I recomposed myself and moved to the E. By the time I got a good view of the back edge again, the wall cloud was quite disorganized. I followed the cell for a while longer, but it never again got its act together.

I got so caught up in watching the rapid evolution of the wall cloud on this storm, that I didn't realize how close it was and how quickly it was moving. I also didn't have a well-thought out escape route. Trying to beat that storm over the lake was definitely a mistake (I can't even swim, so this was a unique kind of terror for me). This image shows my approximate location as the circulation passed just to my East:
http://home.austin.rr.com/evilolive/images/6Apr2006/EufalaMap.jpg

Well, lessons learned, and my best storm of the year thus far, so I was happy overall.

TonyC