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| I love that gas prices peak right around this time of year! I
always look back at year's past and wish for those prices again. Really
hope a time doesn't come when I long for this picture. |
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| Early supercell now near Healy, Kansas |
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| Looked like it wanted to do it here as it got closer. Got a
little funnel to form in there right as it crossed the road in front of
us that lasted all of 45 seconds or so. |
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| Finally. I'd began to think all of our storms were going to
just end up becoming grungy messes, but this one really began
tightening up before this little funnel formed. |
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| I worried for a second about the town in the foreground of
this photo, Grainfield. Became apparent that the tornado was far enough
west of town that it wouldn't pose a serious threat. |
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I love this shot on the video. Excellent motion in that debris swirl at the base of the tornado.
CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO OF THIS TORNADO! |
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| One of my favorite photographs of the year that I took.
Tornado was in the last few minutes of it's life span now. It just
continued to stretch itself out until it could stretch no more, and was
done. |
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| New supercell now. Sitting north of Collyer looking south
west at the approaching base. It would drop a little needle tornado
shortly. |
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| Zoomed in shot of the little tornado to our south. Closer
chasers actually saw a needle funnel coming down from the base, but we
were a bit too far away to see anything more than the dust cloud. |
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| It's magic time now. Howling inflow winds, rapidly rotating wall cloud with a long tail cloud extending north out of it now. |
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| Little funnel cloud in there now. Smaller dust vorticies were
visible on the ground under this massive rotating monster. The motion
was simply unreal. We were a lot closer to this than the still image
shows at this time. |
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| Wow. |
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| I've got this thing down as a big dusty tornado at this point. This is looking northwest, not very far away. |
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| A bit later in the RFD, a tumble weed decided to smack my windshield. |
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| It actually froze and hung there for about a second, and then was whisked away by the winds. |
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| Third supercell now, south of Wakeeney. I was pretty tired
and actually ready for a bed to lay in at this point, but when this
thing came into view I suddenly got a second wind. |
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| Nice long tail cloud coming out of it now. |
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| Starting to get "the look". This is some of my favorite video
as the wall cloud organizes and tornadogenisis begins, with the winds
howling through the power lines. That sound can enhance anything. |
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| We almost repositioned, but let this thing come right by us. Rain bands were rapidly circulating around the funnel cloud now. |
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| Pretty much a tornado now. Rapid circulation in the rain
bands underneath the funnel cloud. Sometimes you'd get what looked like
little vorticies under it. |
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| Wrapping in rain. Definitely a tornado at this point. We were losing it in the contrast at this point, however. |
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| There it goes... our final view. Time to jet back east to
avoid getting nailed by the core of the storm forming on the southern
flank, which had been the cause of the rain wrapping into the tornado. |
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Could still see a little circulation in there before we
jetted east. The funnel is faintly visible in the top middle of the
image.
CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO OF THIS TORNADO! |
