I chased a storm building west of
Anton, Colorado on this day. It was showing signs of becoming a powerful storm. After
dumping quarter size hail and damaging many crops in the area it moved on to Cope where it
began to have tremendous downbursts. A storm 40 miles northeast of this one had a tornado
in it both confirmed by doppler radar and the destruction found afterwards. One mobile
home was completely destroyed. This storm was putting down rotating down bursts
everywhere. Sometimes there were as many as 6 mini twisters(gustnadoes) around me. I was
on highway 36 and the rotating clouds were on all sides of me, in front of me and behind
me. Gust fronts can cause rotating ground disturbance in front of them making it look like
min-tornadoes.
Mini tornadoes(gustnadoes) I call them. They were all around me. It was one wild ride for
almost 45 minutes. The winds pegged my wind meter (65+ mph). I estimate these to be F0
gustnadoes. Trees lost limbs, houses had the antennas ripped off their roofs, I watched as
these winds do their damage. Finally the storm organized and produced a tornado just over
the Kansas border.
No
more gustnadoes, now this was the real thing. Kansas’s weather officials reported a
tornado in this area at the same time but they were on the other side of the tornado. I
was on the north side of this tornado. Where I sat it was quiet, no winds, making it seem
even more erie. After this tornado dissipated I
headed back home. Besides producing this tornado this cell also put down 3
inch hail which caused the worst damage. A storm that was north of this one met it here
and they combined into one large storm front as they moved through northwestern Kansas.
A funnel cloud near Fort Morgan Colorado on May 22nd, 1998.
This storm put down hail that piled 2 feet deep in spots in Brush Colorado and destroyed
many building roofs.
More ground disturbance near a Colorado power plant beneath this building storm.
30 minutes later this same storm developed into this rotating wall cloud about 6 miles
south and 5 miles east of Brush. It was growing in intensity and rotation became more
evident. About 45 minutes after taking this photo this same storm put down a tornado that
destroyed a trailer house near Otis Colorado. Thank goodness no one was home, but
the trailer was a complete loss.
This small funnel cloud was reported by trained weather spotters
as a tornado. I was 3 miles from it so it is difficult to see, but it was reported as on
the ground. The ground disturbance was minimal and it did not do any damage other than
pulling weeds out of a farmers field. A photographer working for the Discovery channel was
next to me. He was filming for a new program to air in the future. One hour later and
doppler radar indicated a tornado on the ground over an unpopulated area south of I70 and
east of Burlington Colorado.
Home |
|
