04/15/06 Reports NE KS IA

Posted on March 15th, 2010 by jack
  • Saw the Beatrice supercell from near Adams. It was quite the big round barrel of an updraft when viewed to the ne. I tried to go ne with it but the stupid road was not good. I turned around and had to drive right into the bear's cage. As rain screams east I get a call from another chaser reporting he'd just see the tornado in there and some damage from it and it was extreme rain-wrapped at the time he saw it. I get out of there and head to the storm that moved nw of St. Joe. The Beatrice storm was much more impressive structurewise. But anyway, on the way back and thought I'd "confirm" that tornado through another chaser and note the impressive structure of the storm at that time.

    EDIT: Holy crap!!!! I just had the most fear all day. I sent this and looked up and this object is RIGHT at my windshield. It took me a second before I realized it was a cat looking right at me. lol


  • Here are a few photos of the Beatrice, NE tornado.

    http://www.stormguy.com/site/images/zoom/DEIDVU/viewsize/4-15Wide.jpg
    Wide Angle

    http://www.stormguy.com/site/images/zoom/DEIDVU/viewsize/4-15Normal.jpg

    http://www.stormguy.com/site/images/zoom/DEIDVU/viewsize/4-15Tight.jpg


  • This was a pretty frustrating chase for me, mainly due to decisions made by me. I missed the beatrice tornado by 30 minutes, missed the jullian tornado by 10 minutes, even though I was on the same storm that produced it, at the time, it really didn't look like much and proceeded south to try to get the storm in Doniphan Co. KS. I ended up taking the wrong road and being in a place I really didn't need to be at.

    Full chase log can be found here 04/15/06 Log (http://www.twisterchase.com/Logs.htm)


  • PostPosted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 10:27 am Post subject: Reply with quote Edit/Delete this post Delete this post
    Here is an actual chase report from yesterday.
    We started out in St Joseph and decided to head west towards Marysville KS to get a better idea of how far we wanted to go, do to the moisture situation. We sat there for a couple of hours and waited for initiation. some stuff started popping by Grand Island NE. We went north after seeing some towers go up. We watched 2 or 3 storms go by, waiting on one to deviate and root. Finally the plan panned out, and the storm which had gorilla hail started moving toward us on the East side of Beatrice. The initial wall cloud was huge and fairly high based. It started to lower in and the low level rotation was very strong. The tornado lasted about 3.5 minutes. The storm became very rain wrapped and started moving right towards us. We pulled up to a little farm house and prepared for the RFD. This was the scariest part of the day. There was Debris and road gravel being thrown around everywhere. Our windows were pulsing and the back end of the 4 runner was trying to lift off the ground. We then tried to get next to a large barn, figuring that it would shield us fdrom the flying debris. At this point we all were starting to really worry as to whether we were in another tornado, which seemed possible because the meso that occluded from the original tornado moved right over us. Bob then stated that we had "2 options, we are either going to die or we are not going to die." For some reason that made us feel a lot better, knowing that we had no control over the sitution. Bob will post all the HD video and audio of the situation later. anyway after 4 minutes of shear terror, we moved on. We looked at a couple of storms after that and everything looked to be outrunning the instability we then preceded back to St Joeseph and intercepted the storm that had a tornado about 5 min before we got there. All in all it was one hell of a chase. the rfd video will be up later.

    SEE YA


  • I'll try not to make it too long.

    Left Hutchinson kind of late, around noon, so we weren't able to make it all the way to the beatrice storm. We did however intercept a nice supercell NW of Topeka and watched a rotating wall cloud (and I estimate 60 mph inflow winds :o ) until it put down a weak tornado south Onaga, ks. Road option east however were non-existant so we weren't able to stay with the storm when it produced the brown county tornadoes later that evening. After that just drove through a little hail and decided to call it quits for the day.


  • This seems to be my year for getting spooky nocturnal twisters. I caught a tornado tonight about 20 mi east of St. Joe. It was another case of being a completely inadvertant catch, but this time I avoided the imminent death scenario.

    I caught the remnants of the Brown Co. storm north of St. Joe, with a great horseshoe that was close to producing north of Fillmore (poor Fillmore) ... it didn't quite seem to make it, and then I got clobbered by rain as I decided to go ahead and try to keep chasing northeast of Savannah.

    Followed the storm up 169, where it remained organized, but lost interest and decided to set up to get some lightning shots ... so I came south on 169 toward St. Joe, then east again toward a little town called Helena. I set up to shoot lightning as the backside of a new cell passed to my east. Then through the strokes under the base, a perfect cone tornado formed and moved off to the northeast slowly. It was on the ground for every bit of five minutes I'd say (though my view of the ground was obscurred). Hoping that at least one or two of the shots with lightning behind the funnel came out.

    This turned my evening around. I had been royally hacked off all day, after having a broken down car for the last two days. I spent all afternoon working on it, then gave up completely a little after 4:00 ... finally at 5:30, when I saw the radar signatures being returned, I knew I just had to use all the elbow grease I could muster and got it fixed at 6:00, just in time to head north and intercept the first cell near St. Joe. I'm still filthy and covered in grease ... as I was through the entire chase. But it was worth it.

    Pics coming soon ... stay tuned. The lightning pics will be better than the tor ---

    Big thanks to Mike Johnston for a great job nowcasting again tonight, too - thanks Mike. I was chasing completely blind tonight ... no maps, no GPS, no wx-radio. I listened to a St. Joe station for info. and then just used my memory of the roads up there. What a wild night.

    -----------------------------------

    Ok - here are a few pics ... we'll start with the tornado ... I have a feeling it was actually pretty good size - but I was quite a distance, as you can see. Have several other photos of lightning going off up in the updraft that shows that the storm was turning a pretty sweet corkscrew maneuver at the time. Also notice the single leader CGs pounding the ground around the meso ... lots of that again with this storm.

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v143/mikeperegrine/web0415060090.jpg

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v143/mikeperegrine/web0415060091.jpg

    These lightning shots have me convinced that I need to use a different lens -

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v143/mikeperegrine/web0415060083.jpg

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v143/mikeperegrine/web0415060020.jpg

    Here is a shot of the backsheared anvil coming off the original St. Joseph storm - taken north of Savannah:

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v143/mikeperegrine/web0415060006.jpg

    This is a shot of some mammatus in the anvil of the St. Joe storm as I was coming up I-29:

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v143/mikeperegrine/web0415060004.jpg


  • Sorry for the delay!! here are Links to a few of my video grabs all of these are as wide as the video could go no zoom at all they are very poor quality there was no time for cameras All of these are from hwy 77 just S of Beatrice
    Pics arent in order according to time

    http://s66.photobucket.com/albums/h260/dwu...rrent=zcxzc.jpg (http://s66.photobucket.com/albums/h260/dwunl68/?action=view¤t=zcxzc.jpg)

    http://s66.photobucket.com/albums/h260/dwu...nt=vvzxczxc.jpg (http://s66.photobucket.com/albums/h260/dwunl68/?action=view¤t=vvzxczxc.jpg)

    http://s66.photobucket.com/albums/h260/dwu...urrent=vvzx.jpg (http://s66.photobucket.com/albums/h260/dwunl68/?action=view¤t=vvzx.jpg)

    http://s66.photobucket.com/albums/h260/dwu...ent=Tornado.jpg (http://s66.photobucket.com/albums/h260/dwunl68/?action=view¤t=Tornado.jpg)

    http://s66.photobucket.com/albums/h260/dwu...ent=zxcxczx.jpg (http://s66.photobucket.com/albums/h260/dwunl68/?action=view¤t=zxcxczx.jpg)


  • I missed the Beatrice tornado by a narrow margin too (3 minutes)... maybe we can start a bust club. I came in from the northeast side... the paved roads were not good, so I used gravel which happened to be extremely hilly (making it nearly impossible to finally find a good viewing position). The storm wrapped up into a truly gorgeous HP as it moved toward my location southwest of Sterling.. some of the best structure I've seen this year. Stuck with the storm until Syracuse (a town I'd been sitting in earlier getting data)... then I observed three more supercells along I-29 southbound. The first was near Mound City MO... the second was a tornado-warned HP with a nice sloped wall cloud within the notch, looking west from Amazonia MO... and the third was a tornado-warned supe that tracked very similarly to the 05-04-03 KC storm, ultimately 10 blocks or so north of my current residence (luckily no serious damage with that one).


  • I left Hastings, Ne at about 11:30 a.m. to meet fellow chaser Tim Blaco in Nebraska City. We met there at about 3p.m. After a short review of the situation, we left right away to go after the Beatrice storm. We took Highway 2 west and then bolted south on Highway 43 out of Bennet toward Adams. As soon as we got to Adams, we went east on Highway 41 a short ways and stopped for some footage of the mothership. Roger Hill and his crew were there as well. Never did see a tornado(congrats to those who did), but plenty of excitement. After seeing what could be seen of the Beatrice storm, we crossed into Iowa and chased until dark. After chasing these faster moving storms, it should be a lot easier when we get some that don't move as fast. Good amount of chaser convergence as well. :)

    http://www.severewxchaser.com/Images/supercell5.jpg


  • See Benjamin Sipprell's above account for early part of the chase. I'll just start where he left off, although Ben stopped chasing after our exciting encounter we continued to chase. We tried to beat the Meso East but were unable to do so as a rain rapped tornado crossed the road 50 yards in front of us at which time we observed many small debris. After that encounter we finnally get E of the storm. As we continue E the storm would keep trying to develop new area's of rotation and for a while we would see funnels form but they would quickly get rapped in rain and we would loose our visual. The storm tried to put on a show one last time just SW of Stereling but it was never able to produce agian (atleast that we could see) at this point we let the storm go as Jeff and Kathy raced S to get to Falls City and we went to get Sean's video to KETV.


  • Ben Beilsmith, Darin Brunin, Garry Wellman and I targeted Beatrice NE in the morning and made our way to Marysville KS, to check on data. We decided to go north and noted a cell firing to the south of the other ongoing convection. As we were approaching Beatrice, a very crisp, long anvil was now stretching from the storm. We headed north out of Beatrice, and east on 41 highway. Garry then called Scott Kampas who was observing a cone tornado on the ground, so we pulled off. Have about 5 seconds of video that, far away. We were starting to get hit with a little precip and decided we needed to get further south for a better view, and this is the first image shown. Precip soon filled in this beautiful sup, and we slowly trailed it, visibility was horrible. We ditched this storm and decided to try and catch a few more cells to our south, and didn't have much luck either. It was then decided that the Brown/Doniphan county tornado warned cell was our best bet and we raced to it. We caught up to it near I-29 where a rotating wall cloud was visible. Our location says : 3.5 miles west of savannah MO on SR CC at 7:28 pm. Contrast was horrible, but we witnessed our second tornado of the day, and were shortly blasted by the junk to it's south. After we managed to get out of that, we then headed for the torn-warned cell that was approaching the north side of Kansas City. Noticed a wall cloud, and possibly a funnel heading over the the I-29/ 169 highway. It would later go on to produce east of the metro. All in all a good day, SICK of storms moving 50 mph plus, and had a great time. First time using wx worx and street atlas for me, and now wanting those for myself really really bad. :P

    Congrats to everyone.

    Photos, are mine, Darin's and Garry's combined.

    http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y230/DickTwister/beatricea.jpg

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v226/bruninda/0415061.jpg
    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v226/bruninda/leftside_ofwalbl.gif


  • Targetted Beatrice and saw the un-mistakeable Cone from a distance and then managed to find a decent viewing angle as the ground circulation seemed to weaken. After which the whole area got wrapped up in rain, their were some very omnious signs like cloud material moving into the rain curtain towards where the tornado had been. Also, a WC stubby tail was sticking out of the curtain for a while as well as a strange lowering to the side for about 10 minutes. There was at least one more funnel with this storm as I followed it NE and then as I saw the upcoming southern cell on radar (and it's strong convergence) I went east between the two cells and hit slightly larger than pea size hail. I went through Nebraska City and then east through Waubonise State Park (about a 4 minute drive which made me nervous since it's hills and trees) as I emerged to flat plains I heard the report of a tornado south of Nebraska City. As I neared Riverton I stopped and could just barely see a dinky little rope moving near I-29 and into IA.

    About ten minutes later the cell attempted another funnel but by this time was becoming increasingly high based. I followed it for another hour and it as it cycled across the spectrum of structure.

    http://img102.imageshack.us/img102/3203/dsc002767rw.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

    http://img102.imageshack.us/img102/7995/dsc003017kn.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

    http://img480.imageshack.us/img480/6431/dsc003042yf.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

    http://img102.imageshack.us/img102/6524/dsc003375gq.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

    http://img480.imageshack.us/img480/7127/dsc003599lg.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

    http://img102.imageshack.us/img102/2416/dsc003396xi.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


  • We arrived near Beatrice and watched the entire life cycle of this great Cone tornado. The video tells it all..
    congrats to all that caught one today..

    here is the video.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdI71EYVr8c


  • A love hate day of chasing in Nebraska Saturday. No access to data except for radar all day due to major equipment failures. Very frustrating to say the least. I was in Beatrice most of the afternoon but I did drift west when the storms fired thinking I would intercept some fast moving north bound storms. I quickly realized the southern storm of the cells near the KS/NE border was the show so I headed back from the NW of Beatrice and manage to catch the Beatrice tornado just NE of Beatrice. What a beatiful storm and some great structure. I followed it for a few hours as it transitioned to HP and then to the MO border and then dropped south sampling two more storms in the line before calling it quits near St. Joseph. Great chase day in the end.
    [attachmentid=147] [attachmentid=146] [attachmentid=148]

    Jerry Funfsinn


  • April, 15, 2006 - Chase Report

    I also caught the tornadic supercell near Beatrice, NE. I was Northeast of the storm and the tornado was rain wrapped as it moved towards me . I did see the tornado a few times looking SW as I drove E. I was unable to stop and shoot much video since I needed to be far enough E by the time the storm reached my location to let it pass safely to my NW. Caught the funnel from another storm later .

    http://windsweptchasetours.com/BIE_Super1.jpg

    http://windsweptchasetours.com/Bie_Super2.jpg

    http://windsweptchasetours.com/BIE_Super3.jpg

    http://windsweptchasetours.com/Apr15_Vid.jpg

    http://windsweptchasetours.com/Apr15_Fun.jpg

    http://windsweptchasetours.com/Towers3.jpg

    http://windsweptchasetours.com/Towers4.jpg

    Dean Cosgrove
    http://chasetours.com/


  • http://www.extremeinstability.com/06-4-15.htm

    Account and images there.

    http://www.extremeinstability.com/stormpics/2006/06-4-15-5606.jpg
    The Beatrice storm viewed from somewhere just west of Sterling.

    http://www.extremeinstability.com/stormpics/2006/06-4-15-5608.jpg
    Turning around on my gravel road north of Sterling.

    http://www.extremeinstability.com/stormpics/2006/06-4-15-31.jpg
    Something west of me as I head back south to Sterling. According to the damage survey it was still producing a tornado then and there. That is wrapped back in there. I get smacked with high winds and rain seconds after that. Some guy coming south in a truck was flashing his lights at me when I was still trying to go north. I really wish the area had less hills and actuall options east that were showing on the GPS. That trip north and back south was a bit stressful.


  • Not much to add as everyone seems to have been on the Beatrice tornado. It reminded me a lot of Laverne '91. Saw a possible second tornado later on somewhere between Burchard and Steinauer at 5:14pm CDT. I looked over my shoulder while driving north and saw a skinny funnel about 1/3 to the ground, complete with RFD notch. It was well underway when we first saw it and lasted about a minute or so after we stopped to watch. We had trees along the ground so we couldn't see below it. This came from the storm south of the Beatrice storm. If anyone can confirm this or not, I'd appreciate a PM.

    Aside: Passed Mike Hollingshead in Brownville, NE just before the river, making this the first time I've ever seen him on a chase. But I don't think he saw me LOL.


  • I completely blew a tornado in my own backyard. I left home around 3:00 or so headed for the Fairbury area trying to get in position, but by then the storms had moved north of there (moving faster than I thought). From there I went to Plymouth while still trying to keep up with the storm. The whole time the storm had a fairly impressive structure that convinced me it wanted to spin. From Plymouth I wound up heading into Clatonia where the tornado sirens informed me that I was a day late for the show. From Clatonia I went to Crab Orchard in an attempt to catch up with another impressive looking cell, but I couldn't catch up with it. On my way to Crab Orchard I did pass near Adams and saw where the tornado had knocked down someone's kiddy play set. After farting around at Crab Orchard (and getting lost on good ol' Nebraska dirt roads) I decided it was time to call it a day. Just east of Beatrice I saw where the tornado had caused minor damage to some homes and tried to yank an "X miles to Beatrice, X miles to Wherever" sign out of the ground. The thing was leaning to the right real bad and had bowed out, but it didn't pull it out of the ground. A friend of my brother lives about five miles east of Beatrice and his home received much more serious damage. It tore off part of his roof, moved part of the house off the foundation, blew out the windows on his truck he bought yesterday (and moved it 40 feet, but didn't do any real damage to the body), and took a grain bin and relocated it a ways down in a field. Somehow his dog went through the tornado without a scratch.

    So that is my manual on How You Too Can Screw Up A Chase In Your Own Backyard.

    Total miles: 140


  • I left Wichita at 10 for Concordia. I moved to Beatrice after the dryline started to push through and got on the supercell SW of town. The storm had good structure during its early stages and I could tell the storm was about to go tornadic, so I moved West to get in close. I ended up driving North (on a North-South road) when the first signs of ground circulation started. It was only about 200 yards to my West at this time. At first I thought it was the gust front(and it might have been) that was kicking up dirt, but then it rapidly began strengthening. I had to haul butt to beat it to the intersection where I could turn East to get away and I just barely beat it. Here is a video grab looking back right after I turned East.

    http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/9445/tornadobehindme0ox.th.jpg (http://img411.imageshack.us/my.php?image=tornadobehindme0ox.jpg)

    A funnel took shape and the broad ground circulation tightened up shortly after the last image. Here is a video grab of the tornado as it began strengthening.

    http://img226.imageshack.us/img226/2581/image238kv.th.jpg (http://img226.imageshack.us/my.php?image=image238kv.jpg)

    For a two minute period, the tornado was quite strong. I would say high end F2 low end F3 based on the circulation at the surface. I am not aware of what structures were hit and where they were located so I don't know that the rating will reflect the true strength of the tornado. Here are a couple video grabs from when the tornado was at its strongest.

    http://img226.imageshack.us/img226/1989/tornado26sf.th.jpg (http://img226.imageshack.us/my.php?image=tornado26sf.jpg)

    http://img226.imageshack.us/img226/1882/image249gc.th.jpg (http://img226.imageshack.us/my.php?image=image249gc.jpg)

    I got one more weak rope tornado 2 miles North of St. Marys at approximately 5:28. I am not sure whether or not it got reported, but I will check on that today and report it if I need to. The tornado caught me by surprise and it didn't last long, so I only got about 10 seconds of video from it. Before I got the camera on the condensation funnel was about two thirds of the way down with a debris/dust cloud at the surface.
    It was an awesome chase and more importantly it got me out of my tornado slump I have been in for the last couple of weeks. Congratulations to everyone else who was on the storm. BTW if you want to see my video it has been playing on CNN.


  • Caught a cell and funnel SE of BIE about 20 mins after the tornado that did all the damage. http://www.opensecrets.us/DSC00380.JPG
    Kinda hard to shoot stills *and* take vid while in 40MPH inflow...the vidcaps hopefully are better. Timestamp isn't adjusted for the recent time change :-(

    This was the storm that moved from Jackson Co, KS through Nemaha/Brown/Doniphan counties. I was just E of Robinson, KS about 710PM. I was listening to a radio staition out of Hiawatha that did a great job of nowcasting and interpreting radar--except for this storm. According to their nowcasts, this moved from 10 mi. S of US-36 to 10 mi. N within ten minutes...I went from worrying about being in the bear's cage to tsk-ing about missing the storm!
    http://www.opensecrets.us/DSC00395.JPG I have no clue as to what this is--but I saw no debris while driving on US-36.


    Ran into Gene Moore at Fairview, KS. Glad to finally meet ya! And thanks for the look at your laptop--I had no idea that there was a line of storms west of us...I was about ready to park and let what was going to happen come to me.

    Remind me not to buy property in Beatrice!


  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdI71EYVr8c

    here is the video from Beatrice Nebraska!


  • I also made it out today from Denver. Missed the Beatrice tornado by 5 minutes, but the structure was magnificant! Caught the cell down the line south and observed a gorgeous white tapered cone tornado as it moved into Otoe county, near Julian. I'll have an account and pics on line later today. Right now, it is 5:30 and I JUST got home! Mike H, I agree, the St Joe storm didn't hold a candle to the Gage county storm.

    Roger Hill


  • http://www.stormchaserco.com/20060415_2_sm.jpg

    http://www.stormchaserco.com/20060415_5_sm.jpg

    http://www.stormchaserco.com/20060415_10_sm.jpg

    Mileage: 1350
    First Chase into Iowa!

    Well yesterday was a bit frustrating but you make your forecast pick your target area and roll the dice and hope you come out within range of a tornadic supercell. With all the talk about a Cold Core setup I think I had this firmly in my mind when we left Grand Island, NE and headed northeast to Central City on HW30. It looked as if the 'string of pearls' storm chain would setup but wiser heads prevailed and we continued to keep our eyes on development to the south. We did our best to get east and south and did we ever! We ended up three counties into southwest Iowa - first time for many of us chasing in Iowa. Still I can say it was a fun chase getting to be out again with most of the Colorado Gang as well as new friends from CSU!


  • Hey Tim,

    Here is a picture report of my chase looooonnnnngggg chase!

    http://www.australiasevereweather.com/phot...jd20060419.html (http://www.australiasevereweather.com/photography/photos/new/jd20060419.html)

    Regards,

    Jimmy Deguara


  • Chase summary: http://www.passiontwist.us/41506chase.htm


  • Peggy and I had targeted Beatrice for a couple days ahead of the event BUT we still didn't make it there on time! We arrived just 5-10 minutes too late for the touchdown south of Beatrice. Congrats to those who were there! We were coming in from the WNW and saw the lovely back side of the storm while the tornado was on the ground. There was a beautiful, very low rainbow at least. We finlly got under the meso immediately East of Beatrice and followed the cell for a while. We saw a very nice wall cloud and funnel. Then we went south and caught a rotating storm coming up that eventually went through Nebraska City and warrented a tornado warning. Next we dropped south to St. Joseph and saw a very well defined wall cloud before feasting on lobster (since we didn't earn a steak dinner!).

    Pics from the day:
    http://www.twistersisters.com/images/041506_Web/041506_1a.jpg
    http://www.twistersisters.com/images/041506_Web/041506_1.jpg
    http://www.twistersisters.com/images/041506_Web/041506_2.jpg
    http://www.twistersisters.com/images/041506_Web/041506_4.jpg
    http://www.twistersisters.com/images/041506_Web/041506_6.jpg
    http://www.twistersisters.com/images/041506_Web/041506_9.jpg


    Melanie Metz


  • I want to make everyone aware that Jimmy Deguara has set what I
    believe is the LONGEST CHASE EVER on record. On April 14-15, he flew from
    Sy :) dney, Australia to Dallas-Fort Worth, rented a car, took a 4 hour nap, then
    drove all the way to Beatrice, NE to film two tornadoes. I don't know the
    F-scale ratings of the tornadoes, but I calculated the average velocity of Mr.
    Deguara towards the tornadoes was about 350 MPH or F6 range. I figured 10,000 air
    miles in 20 hours plus 700 ground miles in 10 hours. Crikey. TM


  • After hearing of Garry, Dick, and darin's late-day tornado west of I-29 in MO, I went back and looked at video. My hunch was right - we saw the same thing except we missed the actual tornado. Our view was south of the tornado looking north, and in my video, we can see the lowered area to the right of the tornado in Dick's picture, but not the tornado. The heavy precip core (seen left of the tornado in Dick's pic) was blocking our view of the actual tornado (which is further west than the lowered area to its right. So while we didn't actually see it, we mentioned that there probably was a tornado in the rain. Oh well.


  • I too chased the Beatrice area Supercell. I almost did not go chasing but decided to at the last moment. Sitting at the Super 8 in Beatrice storms started to fire Southwest along the Kansas/Nebraska line. I dropped southwest of Beatrice and intercepted the southernmost storm at that time. Rotation was weak when I first saw the wall cloud but in just 5 minutes picked up very rapidly. Just a few minutes after that a tornado was on the ground. The tornado lifted after about 5 minutes and the path of the violently rotating wall cloud that was left over was headed quickly in the only direction I could go. The storm quickly got away from me and when I tried to catch back up taking another road I noticed a flat tire and that ended my chase. I guess that is what can happen sometimes when chasing, but at least I got to see a tornado. I ran into a few chasers at the Super 8 in Beatrice. Kurt Silvey and Fred Plowman were two of them and I never got the names of the others, however it was nice to see some people I have never met before, esp. since I was chasing solo this day. Also thanks to my chase partner Tyler Costantini for nowcasting for me. Here is a pic of the tornado and all my pics of this day can be seen at the following link.
    http://pittkans.com/index.php?module=pnGal...=1606&g2_page=2 (http://pittkans.com/index.php?module=pnGallery2&func=main&g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=1606&g2_page=2)


    [attachmentid=154]


  • My wife and I and another couple only made it down to Norfolk to meet the line there. Broke through the line and followed it north. Not much else seen. Got a couple pretty shots. Full account at my blog (http://www.carpetempestas.com).

    http://www.carpetempestas.com/images/chasing/4-15-06/4-15-06-9.JPG
    http://www.carpetempestas.com/images/chasing/4-15-06/4-15-06-16.JPG
    http://www.carpetempestas.com/images/chasing/4-15-06/4-15-06-25.JPG


  • Chase Team: Car #1 (Jeff and Kathryn Piotrowski) Car #2 (Sean McMullen, Katie Lade, Dustin Wilcox) Car #3 (yours truly)

    Quick Notes:

    From Douglas, NE we ran east to Nebraska City where the RUC model had some fantabulous output of convection along with backed winds near the surface and slightly aloft ... looked like this was the area to be for tornadic storms. Saw elevated convection breaking out towards Topeka and then suddenly storms were breaking along the dryline just south of Beatrice (my feeling is that the capping inversion was cooled and the boundary layer moistened by the elevated convection to the east). So the group raced towards Beatrice, I making it last because a patrol officer felt I floated through a stop sign, gave me a warning, then questioned me on the weather.

    The Chase:

    Came west on 136 and then south of Beatrice 2 miles on US 77 where the meso was coming up from the southwest ... and I was completely shocked at our position because the developing tornado was coming straight at us. I was scared out of my mind as the debris cloud could be seen to be rotating stronger and a wedge was coming down out of the meso ... It was awe inspiring and crazy at the same time as it was approaching us.

    As the meso came right at us at the same time it started to become rain wrapped. I was wiping my camera a bunch, Jeff was getting fantastic footage over a fence (shown on CNN ... see caption "We're in a *bleep* tornado!) while Sean and crew shot out the window of their car. I was dancing around taking pictures. But things were getting nuts and the storm was moving way too close. I started yelling that we had to move and get out of there. I jumped in my car and raced south a mile and Sean to the north ... looking in my rear view I saw Jeff still filming but he later went north.

    Heading south I gripped the wheel and had the steering wheel tilted I'd say 15 degrees to the left as the tornado passed right by me in the field about 50 to 100 yards away ... and my car was going straight. I was scared as ever and I really thought I was going to die. At the same time a whole line of 5 to 8 storm chasing cars led by police moved north on US 77. I pulled a U-turn to see the tornado pass over the road and hit the barn that was sitting right behind us where we initially pulled off on US 77. If I had sat any longer ... who knows.

    Trying to keep up I felt personally the storm was too rain wrapped and too dangerous, and the same went for the storm down by Falls City later in the day that I tried to intercept. With my whole body tense, all alone and lost from my group, scared out of my mind that I just nearly missed being hit by a tornado, I gave up when trying to punch through golf ball sized hail and headed back to camp in Douglas, NE.

    Keep an eye on Twisterchasers.com for video from Jeff and Sean (I know their video was on CNN and TWC).

    Here are my pics: (just some notes: the pictures aren't great contrast-wise because things were happening so rapidly I wasn't much bothering into changing lenses and/or fiddling with my D10. I just kept it on easy and so I'm not worried about s ... there are much better pics out there.

    There are multiple picture pages, so be sure to use the arrows at the top of the page ... some images are blurry but are added for chase account purposes)

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


  • :o Ok i bet one can wonder how i sat at beatrice but went west then came back, and i end up chasing the stuff up by Rising City and ending up in Columbus NE... on a serious note i had gotten a call that my grandma was feeling ill and the rescue squad had to be called and someone need to be at the house to lock it up and stuff... i tell you its HELL! getting old anymore .... so to the chase part... i topped the tank off at Rising City sat and watched as storms approached.... took some pics and followed it to columbus, it looked like it was intresting for awhile got some small hail but i stayed out of the precip core.. until im on backgroads going North and East i had to stop and check the map to see where my nearest Hwy was, at that point the storm quickly got up to me and i got blasted with rain.. it was nice to see it coming horizontally with the wind, after it calming a bit i hauled but north on county road V and thats when reality quickly set in.... i headed back stressed out about things... got on Hwy 92, took 77 south from Wahoo, shot East on I-80 to take 66 to louisville, and then took US 50 to Hwy 34 east and dropped south on 59 to Hwy 2 in hopes of catching the tornadic storm, well i continued east on Hwy 2 and i stopped in Creston IA, watched the lightning show, and headed home congrats on those who bagged...
    all in all im just ready for SLOW MOVING STORMS!


    NOTE( might as well call funnels tornadoes now"... thats all i heard on the radio stations, a funnel was on the ground , sherrifs and local spotters were reporting a funnel touching the ground , at the point the NWS had a severe thunderstorm warning for Aubdoubon IA , but local law enforcement reported a funnel on the ground moving ENE at 45 mph.... you figure NWS would issue a tornado warning right?.... nothing came out , but then again sherrifs eyes view of something , is there word.... i feel a couple reports were nothing more then low scud moving through the heavy rain/hail area, and the others were actual funnel cloud/ tornado reports..

    Oh well no ones perfect ;-)

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v159/NEdaNE04/4-15-061.jpg

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v159/NEdaNE04/4-15-066.jpg

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v159/NEdaNE04/4-15-067.jpg

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v159/NEdaNE04/4-15-065.jpg

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v159/NEdaNE04/4-15-068.jpg

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v159/NEdaNE04/4-15-069.jpg





    .


  • I got two tornadoes. The first one was South of Beatrice and I am guessing it was high end F2 low end F3. It was on the ground for about five minutes and was a very impressive cone. My video should be on CNN shortly. The second one was a short live rope 2 miles North of St. Marys. I will post pictures tomorrow morning.


  • Hopefully images will come out all right this is my first attempt to add images via photobucket.com.

    Left Omaha at 1:30PM targeting Fairbury, NE. Drove past that bad accident on I-80 just as first patrolman arrived. It appeared that an SUV traveling east crossed the median and flip several times ejecting the driver. I pray they survived, it looked real bad. Well back to the chase, my chase partner and I arrived in Beatrice around 3PM. we could see towers going up along the dryline to our west and northwest. Checked WXWORX, decided not to go after any storms that were moving NW do to reduced storm relative shear. We headed west on NE route 4 for about ten miles as we watched the towers build to the SW.



    As soon as we determined the motion of the storms, near Fairbury, were to the NE we doubled back keeping just east of these storms being sure to avoid the "traffic" in Beatrice. Today luck bounced our way. We were planning to continue east but the road, that according to De Lorme went through to the east, was gated and we could only go south. We had been watching what appeared to be an inflow band protruding from behind the rain core for several miles. As we moved south, more and more of it was revealed until we came over a big hill NE of Beatrice and then we could see the entire wall cloud and meso.

    http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g157/Jason_McKittrick/efb2a80a.jpg

    It took about 5 min or so for a funnel to develop and touch down. This shot was taken about 5 miles ENE of Beatrice.

    http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g157/Jason_McKittrick/640fa25b.jpg


    As we watched this tornado for 5 or 6 minutes we noticed it was not moving left or right and we had to travel about 3 miles east to reach a N-S road, coincidentally the same road we traveled on 4-6, we had to jet. We raced north now being chased by this HP monster moving NNE at 50mph. This shot was taken about 10 miles S of Adams, NE


    http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g157/Jason_McKittrick/ec03af90.jpg

    It finally caught us in Adams, NE. Thanks to WXWORX we were confident enough to go west into the NW fringe of the core. We encountered some .75" to about 1.25" diameter hail, no dents fortunately. As we emerged from the core we looked back to see what we left behind and we were treated to on more beautiful view about 6 miles W of Adams, NE.

    I can't seem to get this photo to upload properly, it is a beautiful double rainbow, very close and very bright.


    I found it interesting that my chases have been more successful when I rely less on WXWORX. From the time we decided on which storm we were going to chase to the time we reached Adams and needed an escape, I never looked at WXWORX. Don't get me wrong it was very helpful in deciding which storm to go after and in determining an escape route, but last week when I couldn't get it to work and this week when I made a concerted effort to use it as little as possible; I caught tornadoes on both chases for the first time since before I had WXWORX.


  • Pretty good chase day for me in spite of missing all the tornadoes. I caught two very impressive supercells. The first pic is looking W from, uh, I think KS Hwy16 just W of US75 (N of TOP) at 2235z. I left that one as the base seemed to get higher and higher, and the lowerings went away not too long after shooting that pic. I figured the storm was drifting over some lower Td's, and there were more storms developing to the S, so I headed S, then E, to Lawrence.

    The second pic is a wc directly over Lawrence at 0050z. There was no obvious rotation to it. I then chased that to Linwood, where I sat watching some rotating cone-ish lowerings for about 10 minutes before the sirens suddenly sounded. Soon after, things got boring, and it was almost dark, so I called it a day.

    I had kind of a rough time today with construction, cities, trees, rivers...and got blasted by dust with the windows open several times...but sometimes that's just how it goes.

    Bob

    [attachmentid=140][attachmentid=139]


  • Left home around 7am for a target area around Beatrice and arrived around 2:30pm.Went to the Super 8 to collect some data.Met some of the folks from stormtrack while gathering data.Was nice meeting everyone and to put a face with the name.After gathering data and seeing the storms southwest of Beatrice decided to move southwest of Beatrice and intercept the second of two storms moving northwest.As the storm approached from the southwest i decided i needed to get a little father south.At this point is where i ran into Fred Plowman again which i met earlier at the Super 8.The next few minutes was amazing as the storm went overhead while a funnel started to form.As the funnel passed the circulation on the ground started about 100 yards to are northeast (see fplowmans post earlier).As the tornado moved off to the northeast it became a beautiful white cone with a large debris field under the cone.The next hour or so spent trying to catch back up to the storm which was not able to do but did drive through some of the damage path.Looked like F0 to F1 damage mainly in the area we went through.Thanks to Fred and his crew for a enjoyable day.As i headed back towards St.Louis seen a nice wall cloud west of St.Joe and barely beat the storm that went through K.C at night around 9:15pm.


  • I was at the same spot as fplowman at PWF Road and SW 61st RD, in fact my girlfriend and myself are in his video - marroon cherokee. Pretty much got the same video footage as he did, in fact you can hear him yelling "Go baby go" in the backround. Wish we could have stuck around and talked....

    My afternoon pretty much started at 1600 as I saw thunderstorms popping up in Jefferson County - west of Gage. Drove to the area of US 136 and SW 61st RD, was going to wait for more info from local spotters before I made my move.
    Located wall cloud and moved S on SW 61st to Oak RD, approx 2 miles N of wall cloud. Saw dust starting to pick up in the area strait S. I then moved 2 miles S to PWF RD where I met up with fplowmans group.
    As he said, the tornado formed right in front of us and grew......it was awesome.
    From there, headed towards Holmesville as a tornado was being reported 2 W of there. That came up sith nothing as the storm was rapidly moving N. Met up with another convoy of chaser from MO. Led them to Hi-way 77 and through Beatrice to E 136.
    Had to stop at some friends houses E of Beatrice due to damage, roofs torn off garages and barns, bins down and lots of tree branches through windows. My girlfriends brother house got hit, he said that when he was in the basement he could hear water being sucked UP through the sewer pipes as the tornado passed over.

    Thats all for now


  • I left FTW for Wichita, KS friday evening to be within range on Saturday.

    Took the turnpike to Topeka Saturday morning then Hwy 75 north into Nebraska, stopping in Auburn to gas-up. By now storms were firing in a NW-SE arc down to the KS/NE border so I took off west on Hwy 136 towards Beatrice. With the speed of the storms I jogged up to the St. Mary/Sterling area hoping to stay in front but quickly realized I need to get back to Hwy 136 and found a gravel road that did the job.

    As I drobe west on 136 I could see the wall cloud and it looked ready to produce. I took Hwy 43 in Filley to get just north of town for a view. Just as I found a spot I could see a truncated cone with debre lifting to meet it.
    http://chaseone.com/April-15-06-01.jpg

    Here's a wide view with the tornado still on the ground. Note the new wall cloud to the right.
    http://chaseone.com/April-15-06-05.jpg

    After the 1st tornado lifted the new wall-cloud grew larger and appeared to produce a larger tornado just before wrapping in rain.
    http://chaseone.com/April-15-06-14.jpg


  • FULL CHASE REPORT CAN BE FOUND HERE! (http://www.tornadoeskick.com/log060415.html)

    CHASE SUMMARY FOR APRIL 15, 2006
    Tom Dulong, James Caust, and myself intercepted a number of storms starting from Grand Island and working our way into Sidney, IA. We chased in convoy with a load of Colorado chasers including Chris Rozoff, Verne Carlson, Katie Burtis, and several others from the Colorado area. Between the four cars, we covered a lot of ground today. Meeting in Grand Island, we hung around as the dryline approached from the west and began our eastward movement which turned out to be a bit too late as storms fired well ahead of the advancing dryline and put us in a position where we originally thought we were ahead to having to play catchup.

    We intercepted our first storm near Polk, NE where we observed a rather unorganized wall cloud and a brief but convincing RFD notch. When it faded, our group split as we continued east in a hurry trying to get in better position to drop south and intercept the growing storms out of Beatrice. We had an intense core intercept near Wahoo where we took some golfball hail being driven into our vehicles at 50mph where our two vehicles (Verne's and mine) spilt again in Ashland where Verne dropped straight south and we stairstepped our way along NE-66 where we spent a good bit of time fighting driving rain and serious hydroplaning.

    We converged again near Louisville where that small town of less than 2,000 created the biggest pain-in-the-arse way to get through town. Delorme said we could cut straight through the town and we ended up having to go north out of town, the looping back in on a road less than 50 feet away where we finally we able to get back on NE-66 toward Plattsmouth where we paid our $1.25 to cross the bridge into Iowa where we went one county in before calling off the chase. Verne and crew continued east as Tom, James, and I dropped back down to Hwy 2 and fired back into Lincoln where we opted to stay the night and enjoy dinner at Crackle Barrel.

    Definately a fun chase today, but disappointed to see how things ended up evolving. No one in our crew caught any tornadoes today even as the four vehicles ended up in various areas at various times. We rounded out a 684 miles on Saturday and tacked on another 500 heading home from Lincoln for my 15th chase of over 1,000 miles (missed the top 10 by 7 miles).

    http://www.tornadoeskick.com/images/060415i.jpg

    http://www.tornadoeskick.com/images/060415l.jpg

    http://www.tornadoeskick.com/images/060415q.jpg

    FULL CHASE REPORT CAN BE FOUND HERE! (http://www.tornadoeskick.com/log060415.html)


  • Ok,

    I will have to say this was the most memorable chase day I have experienced, Because of how the event unfolded. . I am at a loss for words and all the images are still vivid in my mind. It was INCREDIBLE!

    I was there! At the point of initiation for the Tornado SW of Beatrice, Yes, I was there. It formed right over my head! I was looking right into the inside of the tornado as it formed!

    I have the images, I have the video.

    I left KC at around 10AM My target was SW of Beatrice. I went I 70 and then up through Manhattan. Ate lunch in Manhattan then went N. to Beatrice.. Took some friends who wanted to see a storm.. Boy did I deliver.. lol :blink:

    Went to the Super 8 for Internet data. Met Kurt Silvey, Chris Wilbur. Which was nice. Great folks! Also met Jim Cross and we found each other at the same target "point of initiation" while he saw the same thing I did.. If you look on the target board you will see that he and I picked the target. Anyways.. Me and my crew left and decided to head SW after everyone started to scatter for the cell moving towards us from the SW.

    I set up outside of Beatrice on WPF road and SW61st. I have the pic to show point of initiation and my spot I set up at. at approx. 4:39 it began and then by approx. 4:54 it was all over.

    The Meso as it approaches

    http://www.supercellhunter.com/2006/meso1.jpg


    And another w/ considerable RFD

    http://www.supercellhunter.com/2006/meso2.jpg

    Pic inside the eye of the Tornado as it is forming, over my head!
    Think i should have been in a safer spot?? lol

    http://www.supercellhunter.com/2006/twist2.jpg

    One of it forming to the ground after it passes overhead.

    http://www.supercellhunter.com/2006/twist1.jpg

    Another of it as it completes its form and structure.

    http://www.supercellhunter.com/2006/tornado3.jpg


    Call it luck. But im getting better at this Stormchasing thing. Baron Helps alot .. lol

    And I have to say, it would be unfair to not share this same experience with everyone else.. So I decided to take the time and give you the video. So you can relive it as I did.. Of course its not the same.. But hey its the best society can offer as a re-creation. Oh it was all shot on my DVX100A Panny.. What do you think?

    **** Wanted to add.. A strange anomoly: The smell of the "Fresh Earth" that the tornado had picked up in the debris cloud was unmistakeable.. Nice touch by Mother Nature.

    Warning: Some strong language!

    Link to video of April 15 tornado (http://www.supercellhunter.com/2006/April15.wmv)


  • Wow, I wasn't even planning on chasing on Saturday! I was stuck in Omaha until around 4PM -- and when I was free for the day and saw the storms building to the south, I hopped in my car, checked GRLevel 3, and drove down to just east of Nebraska City. Here I sat up on a hill waiting for a supercell to roll in. Obviously not the best place to snap pictures, but I was more in my "document what's going on" mode than my "take good pictures mode". :) Looking east:

    http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/2415/wall06064eb.jpg

    Nice wall cloud with what appears to be a bit of a funnel forming. That's about as good at it got with this particular storm. Sitting here, I was expecting the meso to slide just to the north of me if I stayed put. It was a bit tricky, as there was second storm trying to develop just to the south of this one, and I wanted to stay out of the precip of both. Eventually I gave up and proceeded east to Nebraska City, then into Iowa.

    When I was in Iowa, I was a bit irked to discover that I can't get cellphone data. Apparently, data connections via Alltel don't work in western Iowa. Without radar, I just kinda sat there and watched the sky. It seemed like everything was going linear, so I drove back through Nebraska City, punched the line, and went back atop a hill to try to get some photogenic shots of the backside of the line:

    http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/7358/rainbow0606web3az.jpg

    Then, of course, I hear on the radio that supercell is dropping a tornado just south of Nebraska City. GrLevel3 seems to agree. Sooooo, I drive back through Nebraska City, cross back into Iowa, just to see the line of chasecars coming back into Nebraska. Greeaaat. :) I pull over to take some more pics of the backside of the storm, which is now long gone (what's left of the supercell is in the lefthand side of the frame; all the stuff to the south is new linear convection trying to fire):

    http://img226.imageshack.us/img226/4276/eastiniowaweb2eo.jpg

    I talked to another Nebraska chaser who told me his tales of great 'naders south of Beatrice and south of Nebraska City. Made me sad that I missed the show, but I still got to see the storms, so no worrys.

    Since I didn't have anything else to do with the day, I followed the storms a bit into Iowa on the backside with the idea of maybe getting some lightning shots when the sun set. The lightning shots looked like junk, but the convection towers at sunset were quite beautiful:

    http://img226.imageshack.us/img226/1043/convect1web3wc.jpg

    http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/6526/convect2web9be.jpg

    http://img226.imageshack.us/img226/3083/convect3web7pq.jpg


    All in all a pretty fun chase day. Wish I could have caught the tubes, but given that I wasn't even expecting to get a chance to do anything at all, I'll gladly take what I can get! :)


  • Hi,

    Absolutely awesome images have been posted - of the tornadoes, the structure and beauty of the updrafts.

    After a long a tiring trip, I arrived in Texas mid-afternoon 14th April from Australia.

    I checked the models and agreed that there was a probable exciting scenario for southeast Nebraska. Fairly powerful wind shear dynamics were to be in place with rapid destabilsation as a short wave ejected across from western Nebraska. Only one issue: we had to get from Dallas to Nebraska. One solution - 4:00am start. Will moisture be sufficient?

    We made it across the border by 2:30pm and had a long awaited lunch. Simultaneously, towers finally erupted with anvils streaming east. We left Aurburn and headed west. Storms were observed to the southwest and west. We took interest of the southern storm - the storms typically moving at 50 to 60 miles per hour and was moving northeast as compared to north based on the warnings!

    After observing the storm which was noted as severe for about 15 minutes we decided to head back to town to fuel. No fuel in town so we found a vantage point. To our astonishment, a wall cloud was visible in the distance. Given the windshear, every effort was taken to head to the storm as quickly as possible knowing it could drop a tornado quickly. Whilst in transit, we observed major funnel (more than to thirds of the way to the ground from our perspective) and this was reported on the NOAA radio as a confirmed tornado with a dust plume rising. my friend Ray saw the dust plume and the funnel. Yes a tornado on the first day! Unfortunately, Ray's video footage was too shaky. I met up with Bobby Eddins as he came down off a side road. He had filmed the tornado.

    The supercell structure was very nice though transitioned quickly into an HP probably because it was high based. The inflow was quite strong in the beginning but intensified as the storm was situated NW of our location. Raindrops finally spoiled the party.

    Heading east, another storm developed in amongst several others with a consolidated base. Thinking that the outflow from a storm directly to its south would interrupt the inflow to this storm, it was dismissed. We could have intercepted the tornado it produced east of Auburn but were intent on chasing a larger tornadic storm further south. Storms were moving too rapidly so the best position we got to was of a tornado that was rainwrapped in northeastern Kansas.

    After this, we enjoyed a lightning show just west of St Joseph.


    http://www.australiasevereweather.com/photography/photos/2006/0415jd04.jpg

    I call this a photo and video bust for us.


  • I also made it out today from Denver. Missed the Beatrice tornado by 5 minutes, but the structure was magnificant! Caught the cell down the line south and observed a gorgeous white tapered cone tornado as it moved into Otoe county, near Julian. I'll have an account and pics on line later today. Right now, it is 5:30 and I JUST got home! Mike H, I agree, the St Joe storm didn't hold a candle to the Gage county storm.

    Roger Hill
    [/b]


    We were with Roger on the tornado near Julian. I'll wait for Roger's description (36 hours in a vehicle and...well..I...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz). Here are some pics.


  • I caught this cone tornado just se of Beatrice, NE about 4:37 CDT. I have several minutes of video with the tornado on the ground with a nice debris cloud. I’ll try to post some vid grabs later and maybe a small clip. I stayed put with the tornado coming towards me until it dissipated and the RFD started to wrap around. Right after I took off to the east I was blasted from the south with very intense winds, and a large Cotton Wood tree just to my left split in half and crashed to the ground. Scared the Sh*t out of me. This became very heavily rain wrapped and it was hard to anything else. I stayed with this storm quite a while, but finally gave up as they were heading into Iowa.

    http://www.pdswatch.com/images/20060415_tor01.jpg

    http://www.pdswatch.com/images/20060415_tor02.jpg







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