Amazing day! I wasn’t quite expecting what we got. Early afternoon storms in the Laramie Range in southeast Wyoming created an outflow boundary for one last storm to ride down. The early storms were tornado warned, but produced nothing, and finally the last cell, ingesting cool, moist surface air, spun like a top and dropped two tornadoes, as well as hail nearly 5″ in diameter! The largest tornado was on the ground for nearly 10 minutes.
June 17, 2010 Southern Minnesota Tornado Outbreak!
Another spectacular day! Witnessed 13 tornadoes in southern Minnesota from near Kiester to north of Albert Lea. There was a near mile wide wedge that was on the ground for nearly an hour! Decided to play further south for the later show and was rewarded for patience. Pretty tough sitting tight and waiting while numerous tornado reports filter in from north of you. My sympathy goes out to all those who suffered losses this day. We came across many damaged properties where authorities were already heading to the scene.
June 16, 2010 Dupree, South Dakota Tornado Outbreak
What an amazing day! We left North Platte, NE headed north to chase the warm front in South Dakota. I was certainly not expecting what occurred this day. After a quick lunch in Rapid City, we took off targeting the warm front near Faith. As we arrived a supercell formed, turned right and anchored on the warm front. This became the tornado machine of the year. We counted 16 tornadoes, with as many as 4 and possibly 5 on the ground at the same time. Three large wedge tornadoes occurred, along with about every other look and shape tornado imaginable. The town of Dupree came within a mile of being wiped off the face of the earth. Thank goodness the worst stayed just west and north of town. Here are a few images.
June 13, 2010 Oklahoma Panhandle Tornadoes
June 13th was the first day of our historic Tour 6 (31 tornadoes total on this tour!). We were a bit late to see the first tornado from this HP supercell southwest of Slapout, OK. By the time we arrived, it was cycling, with several occlusions occuring before it finally cycled and produced a fairly stout, low contrast, partially rain wrapped tornado. A second small and brief tornado occurred after the first one wrapped completely in rain. Fun day, even though we were a bit too late for the most photogenic tornado of the day.
June 10, 2010 Last Chance, Colorado Tornadoes
June 10th had very good instability and moisture, and fairly decent shear. Upslope flow at the surface with moderate southwesterly flow aloft would set the stage for supercell development off the Palmer Divide and the Cheyenne Ridge in Colorado. We ended up a bit late to the Palmer Divide to chase the Last Chance storm due to a large tornado warned supercell near the Cheyenne Ridge northward, but we soon left it and made it in time to witness two tornadoes and gorgeous structure of the Last Chance supercell. Some of these images are digital stills and a few others are video grabs from Caryn’s camcorder.
June 7, 2010 Scottsbluff, Nebraska Tornado
Intercepted a few supercells west of and near Scottsbluff, Nebraska. Upslope flow combined with decent instability set the stage for supercell development. A cell merger near Scottsbluff that occurred on an outflow boundary allowed a messy mesocyclone to spin up and produce a fairly brief tornado that caused some damage to buildings, power lines, trees and flipped cars near Melbeta. We got very close to the circulation.
May 31, 2010 Southeast Colorado Tornadofest!
What an amazing day! We started in Amarillo and noticed a nice pinch point where the winds turned from south to east just north of the Raton Mesa in Baca county. We blasted north to find a magnificent supercell. It produced 5 tornadoes that we could confirm, and possibly 2 others. Two of the tornadoes were on the ground for over 20 minutes. It traveled only 40 miles in its 10 hour lifcycle! It formed just after noon and was still warned at 10 PM that evening.
Here is the first video from the Pritchett tornado. The Campo tornado video is below.
May 26, 2010 Denver, Colorado Tornado Warned Supercell
An active Denver Cyclone contributed to the development of a supercell near DIA. This storm tried hard a couple of time to produce a tornado. Intense upward motion in the wall cloud was noted with a strong inflow jet on two occasions. This storm also produced copious amounts of golf ball sized hail. The structure was quite pretty.
May 25, 2010 Southeast Colorado Tornado
May 25th had some hope of dryline supercells in eastern Colorado. After a landspout fest that we missed due to sticking to our target near Springfield, Colorado, we were treated to a fantastic supercell and a 10 minute cone tornado! This supercell was nearly stationary for several hours before dissipating.
May 23, 2010 Northwest Kansas Nighttime Tornado
Not much to show here as the only shots I got were in the dark of the slender cone. There was another tornado just after this, a tapered elephant trunk that the NWS in Goodland could see from their office. The shots here are all video stills.
