2011-04-09 Reports: NE/IA

[Bill Doms]

My usual procrastination getting stuff done at home got me out the door on Saturday a little later than I had planned so missed Mapleton. The rest of the night was OK. Kudos to all the chasers who dropped off the storm to help out when needed.

Full set of images and vid caps here:

http://www.mnwxchaser.com/11april09.html

 

[Michael O'Keeffe]

Intercepted the Mapleton, IA tornado like everyone else. Here is a picture with a link to a short chase log with more pictures.

4/9/11 Mapleton, IA Violent Tornado by Supercell Crazy, on Flickr

Chase Log
http://michaelokeeffe.blogspot.com/2011/04/april-9-2011-mapleton-ia-tornadic.html
Video
http://michaelokeeffe.blogspot.com/2011/04/mapleton-ia-tornado-video-stills.html

 

[jeremy wilson]

Myself and Brandon Sampson intercepted several tornadoes this day ending with Mapleton. Stopped and went into help mode, searching houses with several other chasers including, Gabreilson, Brunin and some other dudes whose name I can't recall at the moment.

Ended up stuck in Mapleton for about six hours due to the fact that we couldn't find our chase vehicle after it got dark. Police chief of mapleton drove us around until we found it.

The aftermath of this event moved me like no other seeing all the chasers that stopped and dove right into the rubble amid leaking gas lines and a horrible debris field. You all deserve a beer on me.

 

[Cody Ervin]

Started the day off just north of North Bend, NE, then worked our ways northeast ward into Iowa. Spotted this gustnado near Onawa, IA...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26969062@N07/5610904027/in/photostream

Later that night, we witnessed the beautiful stovepipe tornado near Arthur, NE...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26969062@N07/5607343938/in/photostream

After watching the Iowa wedge-fest, we drove back westward towards home and watched the lightning show. Some of the cells were putting out some neat structure...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26969062@N07/5611484858/in/photostream

I'll most likely be putting up a chase report on my website later tonight.

 

[Adam Lucio]

We got video of that one too, but we were a couple miles to the north of it and couldn't really see the funnel above, so we wrote it off as a gustnado and I left it out of the youtube video I posted, looks like I have some re-editing to do. Do you know what road you were on when the shot was taken?

We were maybe a 1/2 mile north of this circulation and the funnel was much more defined from our vantage point. I forget the exact road but I can go back and look it up.

We missed the Mapleton tornado due to taking a way southerly option to get back ahead of the storm. Sort of a bittersweet thing there but we caught back up with the storm in its later stages to view some large night time wedges from a distance. One of them even had a satellite cone. I can only imagine how these storms would have looked in the daylight. Came across a damaged house and stopped to see if we could be of any assistance. Saw some large hail laying about as well.

Full report here: http://aerostorms.com/040911-Mapleton-Iowa-Tornado-Outbreak.php

 

[Jesse Risley]

We caught the gustnado/tornado(?) activity prior to Mapleton, where I got ran over by one of the small ground circulations (this was definitely a gustnado at that juncture) when I was trying to film another feature, and then later played the nighttime activity out in Sac and Pocahontas counties. We saw no less than four tornadoes, though getting final counts will be discerned through a more thorough video analysis.

I've written a full chase report, along with a detailed synoptic analysis, HERE.
http://convectiveaddiction.com/2011...ort-sac-and-pocahontas-county-iowa-tornadoes/

 

[Dustin Wilcox]

Watched a couple weaker tornadoes from the SW side of Mapleton (Intersection of 140th and Poplar Ave) before seeing the large RFD forming and recognizing a large tornado was about to form; given the river/creek I noticed on the map, making the N side of Mapleton the only way East out of town without dropping too far South, and not wanting to get behind the storm and in the RFD, I wanted to get East before the storm reached town...seconds before the tornado struck town, I barreled back NE through town (in the process I lost my windshield to Baseball sized hail) as soon as I was exiting town on the NE end, the tornado was rapidly growing behind me (though still rather weak in appearance), though there was already debris being lofted behind me. With the thought that the tornado would continue East, I positioned 3 miles ESE of town and shot the remaining part of the tornadoes life cycle. Had I known the tornado was going to occlude and become nearly stationary and or lift more North so quickly, I'd of had stayed parked ( or perhaps) dropped a 1/4 mile or so South of my original position and had an unobstructed close view of the tornado moving into town...After that tornado dissipated, I continued to follow the storm East, filming at least 3 more tornadoes...Overall an ok chase day, though if one wants to get picky, I could have made a couple better decisions that would have yielded better video, as it is, just thankful no one was critically injured, and too it was my girlfriends first ever chase, so it was good to get her a tornado, even if they weren't all that photogenic and the photogenic part wasn't helped any by letting a rookie run the videocamera!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fO2Et5GdTX4&feature=player_embedded

Video of the tornado first forming SW of town, and my last minute journey through town will probably be uploaded tomorrow or sometime Wednesday. Like others, I'd like to praise the efforts of those who stopped to lend a hand in town!

Here's a breif clip of my exit from town...3-6 seconds or so just start to show debris as the tornado is just entering town from the SW...Also when I lost my windshield, there were only a few stones, but the few were huge!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RpicosNMZk

 

[Craig McPeck]

Got some video of the Gustnado/Tornado as well;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3g-ICn0seU

So was this an actual weak tornado?

 

[Chris MacIntosh]

And I am yet another person with gustnado/tornado footage! I swear I saw a funnel (as do many people on here it seems), but I don't think we'll ever know the true answer to the question of what this really was.

Gustnado/tornado: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ8cM2u1MBo
The rest of the chase: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UFKsHHbfYI

Anyways, we counted 8 tornadoes, but most of the footage is from Arthur and Pocahontas. One we actually just stumbled upon today (E of Danbury) after looking at my friend's footage. Everyone else was looking the wrong way, but he had his camera facing front and caught it in a lightning flash. What a crazy night.

 

[Darin Brunin]

Mapleton tornado

and some video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krOP88ZOq-I&feature=player_embedded

 

[Dan Rupnow]

Like most others, was on the storm of the day from Onawa onward. Saw no less than 5 tornadoes, as well as the gustnado/tornado "thing" near Onawa. Great early season chase including the most EPIC sustained inflow winds I have ever experienced!

 

[Danny Neal]

Final chase log is up: http://nrnilstormchaser.blogspot.com/2011/04/april-9th-2011-tornado-outbreak-in-iowa.html

 

[Ben Tillotson]

I had a successful chase on Saturday as well. I wasn't in very good position for the Mapleton tornado. I didn't think it was a very impressive tornado at the time and didn't realize until later just how significant it was. The later tornadoes after dark were incredible though.

We got some excellent video of the tornado at Early, IA

 

[David Hoadley]

Ben Prusia, enjoyed your video on the same road as I was. At your time count 2:02, that's me driving by in the white Nissan Altima. I stopped further up the road, about 2 1/2 miles south of Mapleton. I also don't like chasing at night, mainly because its a lot of work for what is often very poor photography (although some on these pages are very good). As an older chaser, I'm not into pursuing the late-night show just to add to my tornado count. Also, over the years, I've found that after a good daylight encounter, I'm usually anxious to get on the road for the long drive to the next day's show. Its all a matter of choice. - - - David Hoadley

 

[Donovan Gruner]

I was out with Brandon Sullivan, Brett Wright, and Connor McCrorey. Unfortunately due to our drivers side door getting bent from flying open in the inflow winds, we weren't able to continue our chase after the Mapleton tornado. Here's a few shots I got. Also unfortunately, amidst the chaos of the door issue, my pictures didn't turn out as nice as I'd have liked, and my video is non-existent. We did however intercept this beast with the drivers side door tied shut with my shoelaces.

 

[Joshua Nall]

I stayed down in KS. After watching cumulus build along the dryline Sat afternoon, felt something would pop, however the dryline started retreating a bit and cumulus looked less robust. Headed south to near the OK/KS boarder seeing the only really active cumulus was over the OK panhandle. A storm eventually went up and was severe warned. First pic is the setting sun and anvil as I was E of it. Second is from right up under it. It really was a sight, even though it was a baby storm, they are all so unique and beautiful. Not quite as much action as I had originally hoped for, but felt lucky to get that storm... Last pic is of some lighting under the base after it moved on off to the NE.

 

[Joe Pudlik]

The group I chased with followed the main supercell from development back in Nebraska. We caught our first tornado on the day in Mapleton. We were at the BP gas station when it formed in the field across the way. We also eventually saw at least one of the tornadoes north of Odebolt, and the start of the Pocahontas tornado.

 

[Scott Sims]

Well, I don't have much to add that hasn't been covered. Great shots and screen grabs everyone. I followed the same storm of course, but took the southern route through the river valley to avoid crossing the circulation as it crossed the highway into Mapleton(oops). So my video of that part is poorly contrasted and from several miles away(to the SE), so it was hardly discernible as a tornado from my vantage point. My night tornado video was also poor, mostly due to hanging back a couple miles since I'm still not used to night chasing, so those screenshots are pretty weak.

Overall, I had lots of fun to get back out to start 2011. The lessons this time are I need to work on keeping a bit closer to the storm and videography still needs work, but at least the forecast part was great as I left Southern Illinois at 4am and stopped in Blair,NE about 2:15, then moved north an exit to Onewa about 3:30 and got to wait for the storm to form and come to me across the river.

I do have another vantage point on the Onewa gustnado/tornado though for anyone reviewing that debate. Here is the timelapse(4x) of that part of the storm and slide show of a few lightning shots and nighttime tornado video grabs.

Watch video >

 

[Michael Stanga]

A Few Photos From 4/9/11

 

[Chip Redmond]

Finally got my blog updated with all the photos and a little of the story to go with it.

Here was our view of the gustnado and funnel:

The third tornado of the night for us:

Tornado #7:

The 8th tornado that could've been the 2-3 mile wide before it strengthened:

And finally, the left edge of the massive (if it stays recorded as such) 2-3 mile tornado. Our location was just west of Pocahontas:

Many more images on all the tornadoes (9!) at my blog: http://chip-redmond.blogspot.com

 

[Zack Hargrove]

Thought you guys might like to see this photo album I put together of progressive video stills from wall cloud to tornado to twin tornadoes. After this, the tornadoes went rain wrapped. These two tornadoes were my first after a little under a year of hunting.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2113153&id=51105633

If you don't have facebook, here are the same pictures on my shutterfly account:

http://zhphotography.shutterfly.com/pictures/595

 

[Ben Tillotson]

Here are some clips of the tornadoes west of and at Early, IA. The tornado at Early starts at about 2:30.

Watch video >

 

[Joel Wright]

Jeremy Ludin, his wife Meghan and myself chased this event. We left the QC around mid morning and made it out to the Desoto Wildlife Refuge around 2 or 3pm. The cap was still holding pretty strongly at this point. We passed the time by playing some long toss with the ol' baseball for awhile.
Finally around 5pm or so we noticed the cumulus gathering along and south of the warm front in eastern Nebraska was beginning take off. We quickly crossed the MO River and intercepted the new cell just north of Fremont NE. Followed the storm back into Iowa near Onawa, where we witnessed the initial dusty spinups/gustnado action. We broke off from the cell briefly to get out ahead of it, and this is around the time when the storm began to become more serious and dropped the Mapleton tornado. We caught back up with it shortly thereafter, and witnessed a nice low-contrast cone tornado east of Mapleton. Darkness was already setting in, but we stayed with it.
The storm cycled numerous times and with the new cylces came new tornadoes. Since it was dark we could only see the tornadoes when the lightning would flash. Luckily for us the electricity with this storm was phenomenal. The inflow into the storm was very impressive as well. It was quite difficult to stand outside and shoot video/pictures of this thing with the winds continually battering us.
Here's a few pics and vid grabs. Will have a full writeup on my site in the next day or two.





　

 

[Josh VandenTop]

did annother edit on my video from the storm, added some footage from before the Mapleton tornado, including the gustnado/tornado whatever it was near Onowa, also made the watermark less annoying on this one, enjoyWatch video >

 

[Zack Hargrove]

Raw Video of the twin tornadoes:

Watch video >