Photo minutes before tornado touchdown. When the storm started building it quickly began rotating and even without radar it was evident it was meso early on.  As I watched the clouds wrap around and back into the storm I knew it had the potential to produce a tornado.  So much spin in a rapidly intensifying storm gave it all the potential it needed to complete the tornado genesis.

We followed one storm for about an hour just East of Limon when it began to weaken. When we arrived back in Limon it was clear there were new storms building just West of Agate to Byers Colorado. 
I headed towards the new storms and noticed a funnel spin out of one just East and south of Agate. That funnel lasted for about 10 minutes before dying and then the whole storm looked to be weakening. The next storm, just West of that one was the one that produced the tornado events. It was the only storm we saw that was clearly meso within our view, so we targeted it and filmed the event. Experience pays off when chasing by eye. 

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Over time you learn to identify potential tornadic storms over storms with less potential. We did not use any radar to identify this storm or any home base support. It was all experience and skill. We watched the storm for about 45 minutes before the first sign of debris appeared under it. It takes patience to let a storm mature and complete the tornado process. Sometimes the hardest part is sitting there waiting for the storm to form a tornado. Almost all the tornadoes I have ever filmed were storms I picked out and waited for them to go severe. This one was not severe when we first picked it out. It was just a storm in the process of building. I kept telling Krystallin it had great potential to go severe and even tornado. It is my normal process to pick out the storms before they are even severe.  Our first tornado this year we did the same and our chase partner from Boston wasn't so sure we had picked the right storm.  He learned how patience pays off as it produced a nice wedge tornado as it crossed the Red River into Oklahoma.

The hail stopped us from getting any closer to the storm. We were in hail for about 1/2 an hour before we were able to find a way out of it.  The winding, muddy dirt roads made travel nearly impossible for us at times.  There weren't any paved roads near the tornado and at times the roads were completely water covered making them mud pools.

After we were done filming the event Channel 4 News in Denver Colorado had us personally deliver the video to their station so they could air it on the 10 O'Clock news. They decided to interview Krystallin and Tornado Tim and included some of the footage of the days chase. They interviewed us on the top roof of their studio which made for a great backdrop with the mountains and dark skies behind us. Everyone at their TV station was so nice to us we felt at ease right away.  It seemed like one large family there.