Amazing day yesterday. Tracked a storm from "inception," where a puffy cumulus breaks the atmospheric "cap" that normally limits growth; through the explosive growth phase to where it's forming a wall cloud (an incredibly short 30 minutes or so--- like watching a bomb going off); to a large, full-fledged F2 or F3 wedge tornado on the ground (another 30 minutes); to where it falls apart into an tornado-less, but still-violent thunderstorm (maybe another 30 minutes).
It's extremely rare to witness the full life cycle of a tornado. One of the people on the tour said he'd been trying 7 years to see somehing like that. A scientist on the tour said he'd been waiting all his life.
Most exciting moment: when the tornado shifted path and headed towards us. We had to drive the wrong way on an Interstate to gain a safe buffer. At closest approach, the tornado got with about 1/4 mile. It was chaotic, fascinating, and yes, fun. We could have filled the tank of one of the SUVs with the amount of adrenelin we were collectively pumping.
"Our" tornado was near Quinter, KS, and mostly just chewed up some cropland and fields. The overall tornado outbreak was enormous, and we saw, dodged or chased storms from 5AM Friday until we got back to Amarillo at 2AM Saturday (today). Local Kansas news reports: here and here.
I'll be on the road about 4 more days, mostly traveling, so email will remain spotty for a while. I have over 700 megs of photos, and will post the best when I have time to settle in and process it all.
Amazing!
(PS: Someone named Mike Theiss in the Quinter area got a photo of the tornado I saw. this will give you the idea, until I can get my own photos up: http://tinyurl.com/4p3ly2
Mike Theiss' Photo:
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You are right - wow! Sounds like things, in the end, couldn't have gone better. I live in OKC and have seen my share of tornadoes, but all of the standard rope variety. I've never seen a wedge tornado as you got to witness. I was here for May 3rd, 1999 which hit the southern suburbs of Oklahoma City - but I didn't see it.
ReplyDeleteSeeing the full cycle of a tornado is usually something only storm spotters with the resources of a TV station, NWS, etc. get to see and some of them are still waiting to see it! I am glad you actually got to witness that.
What an incredible planet we live on.