06/11/2009 REPORTS: CO/TX

[Verne Carlson]

Tornado east of Ordway, CO this evening at 00:35z passed in front of me with intense RFD driving golfball hail into the side of my vehicle. Had to flee to the south behind cottonwood trees to avoid more damage!

>> More Pics Here <<

 

[Matthew Crowther]

The structure of the Ordway-La Junta storm was jaw-dropping, did not see a tornado (V2 folks we talked to seemed to think there were none, and they were all over the storm) but who cares in any case given how fantastic the storm looked visually.

 

[Olivier Staiger]

still chasing with Gene Moore , and french/swiss friends Dean Gill, Nicolas Gascard and Vincent aka fryzeur, first near Limon, then south to Pueblo to Lamar, lots of hail.

slideshow

http://www.kyte.tv/ch/9038-klipsi/470236-pueblolamar-11-june


hail slow motion x10

http://www.kyte.tv/ch/9038-klipsi/470235-hail-slomo-11-june


the beast near Lamar , filmed with cellphone

http://www.kyte.tv/ch/9038-klipsi/470231-mobile-show-1066


hail covers the road, cellphone video

http://www.kyte.tv/ch/9038-klipsi/470230-mobile-show-1065


2 images, one with the hail covering the road, the other showing the beast at dusk near Lamar.... looks like a cartoon of former french president Chirac's nose ... ;-)

 

[Gene Moore]

Ordway tornado

We can verify an intermittent tornado occurred from near Ordway to south of Sugar Springs. What we witnessed was the same feature as shown in Verne's post. There was a large funnel with a clear space just above the ground. It extended rotating condensation to ground and condensation vortices intermittently; one passing about 100 meters ESE of us which I thought was too close considering the conditions. We never saw it "planted" but the hail fog did obscure the subject at times.

I was with Klipsi and the French chasers with Swiss chaser Dean Gill from the Swiss National Weather Service. We endured a horrific barrage of hail to stay with the storm and finally threw in the towel and parked under a tree. We caught up with the storm and rode the south flank then core punched on #50 north of John Martin Reservoir as hail turned the road white. I'll add the tornado shots as time permits.

 

[DELIGNY Vincent]

Hello klipsi and Gene
Later on we saw a mothership with intense lightning
We follow de storm until pass midnight but no tornado
Hello to Jeff Piotrowski we met brieflly

 

[Olivier Staiger]

more video

another slow motion clip of the hail


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhOkveDZOSs&feature=channel_page


another view of the beast near Lamar

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fySBgHxdcNg&feature=channel_page

 

[Bill Tabor]

Local chase up to near Goldthwaite, Tx. Just a quick note as cells forming already today.

Ran north on the earlier T warned cell south of Goldthwaite. Ran into local chasers Randy Denzer, David Douglas, Tony Cook, and Aaron Dooley. Low visibility at first due to outflowing precip to our north. Eventually I caught sight of a dark cone shaped funnel to the east descending which then appeared to wrap with another funnel appendage and head toward ground as base became obscured by trees and it quickly became wrapped with lots of CG bolts through it. There was also what appeared to be a wallcloud with small funnel for awhile west of the road that got obscured by rain. Finally south of Lampasas I believe I watched another funnel with CG bolts through it begin descending but the base was obscured by a large cylindrical water tank in front of me. (I was streaming all that). Pics of this later.
Probably the most interesting part was the area as the group raced back toward Liberty Hill to the SW on hwy 183. This coincides with the tornado warning in that area and the damage reported near Bertram / Burnett. This was a bit of a hairy scenario as we raced south since no east roads until hwy 29. I didn't have a lot of time to look at this feature in the frenzy of trying to beat it south. I was videotaping the whole time (dash cam) but it was zoomed out. Initially when I saw it I thought it possible as a large wide tornado - but it was distant. Precip quickly obscured it more and not sure if it wasn't more of some kind of intense micro burst, or perhaps elevated rotation with associated rain and wind near ground level. It didn't look like a feature to tangle with and considering it blew the roof off a 7-11 and other damage it was fairly intense. It kind of reminded me of the outflow or RFD preceding the May 12 2005 South Plains tornado on it's SE side, or even also of the feature David Douglas and I raced east from San Angelo to near Brady last year. Glad it gave me time to reach hwy 29 and take an east road option. I was reluctant to turn around and go back north because of all the staccato lightning which previously had been raining down all around me while I was at ground zero apparently. I believe some of the others managed to wait on it and follow it in to Cedar Park, but I think I was ahead of all them and closer to it at the time.

All in all a fun chase with a little excitement at the end. I am unable to verify any as tornadoes, but some were possible. Looking at local video of others some are definitely true funnel clouds. One may have showed brief touchdowns near Cedar Park. Look them up on Youtube

 

[Ric Burney]

Finally getting around to organizing last weeks footage (what there was of it). I was on the central Texas storm from around Hamilton down to near Georgetown. Report w/ video and stills here:
http://www.geocities.com/numist/wx06112009.html
Bill T, I might have caught the feature south of Lampasas you were looking at on my video.

 

[Stephen Locke]

Colorado; The Rocky Ford Supercell

Five images.