06/05/2009 REPORTS: WY, NE, CO

[Verne Carlson]

LaGrange, WY Tornado 22:24z

Caught this beautiful tornado - at a price. We were on the western side of the updraft and just on the edge of the downdraft. We took shelter underneath a pine tree to get out of the baseball hail but were unable to avoid many dents and a cracked windshield. Nevertheless, we got to watch this long lived tornado as it crossed the road and fizzled out.

>> Full Report Here <<

 

[sdienst]

Got on the same LaGrange tornado as eveyone else. Some great video early on of the larger stage of the tornado. One of the more impressive moments was the rope out stage though. Most of my stuff is on video but I'm sure there will be about a thousand pics up of the tornado within an hour or so. Here are a few shots of the rope though.

 

[Ben Holcomb]

Scott Bennett and I got the tornado northwest of Kimball, NE. We've got video up of the tornado at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_nawk3CeWA

Great structure, great tornado, and a great chase day was had. I lost my HTC Touch Pro, which we later found damaged. I will see what the damages on that will cost me tomorrow!

 

[Matt Grantham]

Caught the entire life of the Wyoming tornado. Absolutely insane tornado for an upslope event! It passed about a mile in front of me and roped out in the field to my east. Here are some stills from my HD cam.

 

[Scott Hammel]

Started the day playing the NE CO target up in Julesburg (whoops) so we missed the LaGrange, WY tornado. So we decided to head back west into the NE Panhandle and did catch the Kimball tornado. So what started off as a bad decision still ended with good results. Wish we could've gotten there for the WY tornado though but we were 1 out of 2 so I'll take it!

 

[Andrew Stoller]

Wheeeeeeeeew! What a day. Caught the full life cycle of the LaGrange tornado as well. Luckily I stayed far enough south to avoid the baseballs and catch the rope out. It was fairly rain wrapped at times from the southeastern vantage point, but that left a great view of the rope out stage, which was phenominal.

Maybe if I get off my lazy ass and do some editing, I'll post some pics.

 

[Danny Neal]

Adam and I left Chicago at 10 PM on Friday and drove through the night to North Platte, NE. by 12 noon. We booked a hotel and caught a two hour power nap before heading down I 80 for a Kimball, NE target. We neared Sidney, NE, to gas up and a supercell had blown up in E WY. We watched as it headed NE then E and finally SE. As we got to Kimball, we noted a very dark area to our N and NW as the storm was still over 20-30 miles away. When we crested the hill just north of Kimball we saw a large low wall cloud and what we thought was a thick tube coming out of the left side of it. Going through as many hills and valleys as we did it was killing us not being able to confirm.... until we crested one last hill. There it was ..... about 15 miles away a big tube that transitioned into a big rope coming out of the left side of the newly developed wall cloud. At first we thought it was a landspout as it appeared to be coming either out of the side or from behind the wall cloud. But as others have clearly shown... it was indeed a full blown tube. We probably caught the last.....5 minutes of it clearly. But had brief glimpses of what we thought may have been for probably a good 10 minutes. After that we were treated to some of the most amazing structure Nature has to offer. I will write and post more in on my webpage and post a picture or two soon after I get them uploaded. Getting reading for round 2 tomorrow.

24 pictures of the event: http://picasaweb.google.com/NorthernILStormChaser/662009#

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAF1nVDbkS0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKQEHKKly5o

 

[Brandon McClung]

VORTEX2 had a great deployment on this tornado. Very good data was collected and we still managed to get a few shots off. Being in the mobile mesonet, I was not able to get too many stills as the vehicle cant stop for data collection. Here is a pic I grabbed.

 

[Gabe Garfield]

I don't really write summaries anymore, but I wanted to give a special "shoutout" to an unknown chaser west of LaGrange, WY who gave Mobile Mesonet #4 (my probe) a helping hand. Due to an unfortunate maneuver on a dirt road (we were doing north-south transects at the time), MM4 became helplessly stuck in a ditch with the tornado approaching from the west and northwest. This unknown chaser offered to lay aside his camera work to help us in our attempt to get it out of the ditch. When this failed, he gave us a short ride south to ensure we wouldn't get munched by the approaching strong tornado. I know this particular chaser probably didn't take as many photos as he would've liked, which is why I wanted to publicly declare how grateful I am to have received his help. Chasers like him give chasers everywhere a better name.

Please send me a private message if you know this chaser (or are him) so I may personally thank him!

 

[Stan Rose]

Also caught the Lagrange tornado; the rope-out was especially impressive from my eastern vantage point. Tremendous structure from this sup. Met up with Skip Talbot & Co for some steaks and Guinness in Sidney afterwards--a great chase overall!

 

[cdcollura]

Good day all,

Started the day in Hays, Kansas after flying into KC on late June 4. I was able to get on the La Grange (WY) storm from a vantage point first near Harrisburg (NE). Not bad as I was in Florida just 24 hours prior!

Above: First view of the tornado (zoomed / cropped shot - wish I was closer).

Above: Another view of the tornado later in it's life cycle.

Above: Supercell south of Harrisburg. Note small funnel.

Above: Close up of meso on Harrisburg supercell.

Above: Just where you want to be (bear's cage) - Little white circle is my position!

Above: Later supercell storm near Bridgeport (4" hail falling in vault).

Congrats to all who scored today ... We all deserved it!

 

[AndyGabrielson]

Caught the tornado near LeGrange, WY... got some close footage and just an overall nice view of this awesome tornado...
followed the storms as the day went on but abandoned to upload video, congrats to all, awesome stuff from everyone!

LeGrange, WY Tornado Video - Andy Gabrielson

 

[Randall Cooper]

My report is in my blog, saw the La Grange tornado from a distance. Got very good pictures. This was my first full condensation tornado, very fun day!

http://www.ichasewhatyouhidefrom.com/index.php?option=com_idoblog&view=idoblog&Itemid=57

 

[Michael Carlson]

Caught the same tornado everyone else did! First TUBE OF 09' !!!

MORE PHOTOS AND VIDEO

 

[George Kourounis]

Like many others, I was also on the La Grange tornado and had a great view from on top of a hill. Later that night as we were taking lightning photos, a bolt struck across the road behind us... I nearly jumped out of my skin.

George Kourounis
www.stormchaser.ca