| Storm chasing in Wyoming
this year Tornado Tim found a funnel worming out of this storm on Saturday, June
30th 2001. Just as he saw it worm down from the clouds the NWS issued a tornado warning
for Carpenter Wyoming. Our National Weather Service is incredibly fast at seeing
tornadoes. Tim was impressed with how fast their warnings came out, almost
immediately at the same moment the tornado dropped from the sky NOAA weather radio sounded
a tornado warning. Hopefully everyone realizes how diligent our NWS workers are,
they are truly life savers. First NWS warning
As the tornado warnings continued people took cover in their
basements. From this location, just south and east of Carpenter Wyoming,
it appeared to be over the city of Carpenter. The area has a history for
tornado damage.
Their school had the roof torn off from a twister before. The form and shape of the
funnel continued to change as it wormed downward from the sky towards the city of
Carpenter. The National Weather Service issued an updated tornado warning for the
area.

2nd
NWS warning

The funnel disappeared just as I was driving away from the location.

Here is what the cloud looked like just 10 minutes
after the tornado disappeared.
Storm chasing in the Nebraska panhandle Tornado Tim caught more severe
storms. The National Weather Service put out tornado warnings on this cell as it moved
south/southeast towards his location. Below
are entries from Tims log.
Sunday, July 1st 2001.

I was nervous for a farm in the path of this storm
which had a history of producing tornadoes. The last thing I was hoping to see was
someone's home destroyed by a twister. I anxiously watched as it threatened this
farm with its violent winds.
I continued to see rapid rotation within the cell and small funnels would
be begin to worm downward from the base of the wall cloud. Ground disturbance would
form beneath these small funnels and ground rotation became clear and evident, it
was trying to put more tornadoes down.
Here you can see the small funnels worming out of the base of the wall
cloud and the ground being stirred up. Technically these are tornado touch downs
even though the condensation funnel did not show a full connection. Doppler radar
warnings of a tornado continued to sound so the rotation is both visible here and on
radar.
(WAV)Listen to the NWS NOAA weather radio warning
(MP3)Listen to the NWS NOAA weather radio warning
From the Nebraska Panhandle down to Sterling Colorado many tornadoes were
reported with this severe storm. The National Weather Service tornado warnings continued
to be sounded as the storm continued it's south/southeast movement. Colorado as the
storms were getting strong all around my location. Gravel roads were washed out
betweenYuma Colorado and Sterling and I soon ran out of roads to take. One road looked
like it could be crossed, but the water got to the top of my front tires so I backed
up.
It turned out the water had washed out the road about 6 feet deep.
Water on the road may look passable at times, but in fact is not. I was careful to
not get the back end of my car in too deep so I could back out to safety. That
was a close one. When storm chasing you have to be very careful for washed out roads, they
can be deadly.
Here are more storm chasing photos from other chases of Tornado
Tim this year.

Near Colorado-Wyoming Border on the Pawnee National Grasslands. Storm chasing in
SouthWestern Nebraska

Storm chasing you get to see many storms building like this.
Storm chasing Tornado Tim ran into a lot of company by this wall cloud. There was a
crew from the weather channel and behind them was a crew from the program
"Atmospheres" which airs on the weather channel. They were kind enough to
talk about the storm and share information. Krystallin traveled with Tornado Tim on
this trip and was just as happy to see the weather channel crew, as she was the
storm.
This storm became a giant vacuum cleaner sucking air from all four sides into the
rotating wall cloud. It was difficult to stand straight up when filming the cloud.
Just after this picture Tim drove to get in front of the storm, which was
moving south, arriving at Bennet just in time to get the car windshield busted out from
large hail. The winds were well over 70 mph when the hail hit the car. A mobile home
park was devastated by the hail knocking out windows and damaging the sides of the homes
with large dents. Hail piled up inside the homes as it blew through the now missing
windows.
Storm chasing close to home this one looked as though it would produce a tornado, but
never did. Doppler radar showed rotation in it but it never received a tornado
warning for this cell.

It looked like it would tighten into a tornado but minutes after this
photo was taken it began to hail and rain hard and 10 minutes later this storm died out
with no visible wall cloud.
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