Furious Skies

WAs we neared the base, we could see a few areas of interest, but still sort of far off on the horizon. Soon after hitting a 4-way stop, a fire truck pulled out in front of us. I only mention this for a later story. We eventually pull way off of the main road, passenger door deep in grass, and put on the flashers. I know there are quite a few concerns with chaser irresponsibility lately, and I don't want to tarnish our "hobby" any more than it already has been.

Sort of disorganized wall cloud with no visible rotation. It really didn't look all that impressive.

Looking back to the east at the anvil as Joel films the stuff behind me.

Here and there, it started to gain a few impressive qualities, but still no visible rotation. If it was, it was very weak. I'm not really sure what else it needed to keep going here. If I had to guess, I'd say lack of inflow, but who knows. This same storm had a history of producing tornadoes about 1/2 hour before we got to it, and there were more storms firing just to the southwest, so that'd be my guess.

We picked up and jetted a bit further north as the storm was pulling away. Soon after, the disorganized wall cloud from before started to look MUCH better. This time we could see rotation, but it just couldn't muster up the juice to produce.

But, it sure didn't last long. It quickly dissipated into virtually nothing and it was apparent the storm was done producing. The radar scans showed it looking pretty crappy too. But, the new storm to it's southwest was starting to look VERY good. A new, classic looking hook formed on the southwestern edge so we quickly bolted off toward it. Upon nearing it, we could start making out the base and what appeared to be a wall cloud or something. We had no idea what sort of structure this beast actually contained. We pulled off on a south-facing gravel back road and watched this sucker in awe as it barreled toward us. A nice, elongated beaver tail wrapped into the base as we could see the ENTIRE structure spinning like a stop. Incredible.

In....in......IOWA?!?!? I never would have thought we'd see this type of structure this far north.

Here's a short timelapse video of this storm. Too bad we couldn't have sat here longer to get more video. In this, you can really see the whole storm motion well. Good stuff......good stuff.

It was quickly gaining on us and we had to make a move. We bolted south down the same road trying to get a bit south of it. Just to the right of the middle in the picture below, that little area of rotation was quite noticable. But, once again, we didn't pull too far south of it as it quickly gained on us again. Dangit. This area would have been PERFECT for something to drop too as the contrast was prime, with nary a house or farm in the way.

So, we get back in, drop even further south. As we were driving, we noticed a little spin-up in the dirt field, but our view was, of course, blocked by a row of trees and other obstructions. Once we busted back out into view, we could clearly see a tornado taking place. The only problem was, the RFD was DIRECTLY behind this and was apparent it was going to swallow it up very soon. We were pretty surprised as to how close the rear flank trailed the tornado, but it was evidently what it needed to get it spinning.

You can clearly see the funnel in this shot below. You can see it in the one above too, but definitely not as well. This was shot with a wide angle lens, so it actually looks alot further away than it was. Our best guess was about a 1/4 mile away, probably less. It was definitely trying to give us the full condensation tube, but the RFD just wouldn't allow that to happen for us. Oh well. Still a no doubter.

Here's a quick video. Again, the sound had to be muted in order for me to upload it to YouTube. Like the Cameron video, it would have taken half of my freaking hard drive just to save a two minute video with sound. Crazy.