2011-04-19 REPORTS: IL/MO/OK/TX/AR

[Skip Talbot]

Here's video from the dome cam of the Girard, IL EF3:

Watch video >

The tail end of the video is the most dramatic as we creep in behind the tornado while getting slammed with RFD. You can see sparks come off the lines ahead of us at 1:36 and a lot of airborne debris afterwards. The rain on the dome mars a lot of the footage, especially when the RFD deluge hits at the end, but you can still get the idea of what's going on. This was a very surreal intercept and will be one of my most memorable. Seeing that ghostly white cone moving in front of a backdrop as black as midnight was very eerie, and it was incredibly intense being right behind a a large cone/stovepipe with debris swirling above us.

 

[WilliamsonJ]

Here are a couple of high contrast shots of the Litchfield, IL tornado doing what has now been rated as EF-2 damage as it crosses I-55.

 

[Joe Pudlik]

Ended up with two gustnadoes and the Litchfield/Honey Bend tornado, which is in the picture below...

 

[Stephen Levine]

Report- North Dallas/Richardson, Texas

Storms built down into our region from Oklahoma in the late afternoon.
Between 4:45 pm and 6:60 I intercepted about 7 miles from my home a spectacular lightning show-one of the three best I've seen since January '10. At the Western end of the storm, the sky took on a suspicious texture and eventually dropped a wall cloud just two miles from my location.
As the wall cloud began to slowly rotate and taper, I called this in to 911.
For complete story and more photos check out my blog www.joyfulstormhunting.com

 

[Paul Hadfield]

Part I of my encounter is complete.

http://pawleewurx.blogspot.com/2011/04/tornado-at-girard-il-part-i.html

 

[Jeremy Ludin]

I have yet to write up an account for the day, but in short Joel Wright and I were on the Litchfield tornado. I have never seen an inflow cloud develop as quickly as I did here, and it happened about 1/4 mile up the road from us. It went from a null, ragged, unorganized looking meso to a menacing, rapidly rotating wall cloud in a matter of minutes. Pretty impressive!

Here's a short clip w/o audio. Will do a full length video in time with a full account.

Litchfield, IL tornado

And a few pics...

 

[Joel Wright]

Full chase log with pics/video here. http://www.qcweather.net/4-19-2011.php

 

[Nick Nolte]

Was also on the Girard storm, although I was due east of it in a less "contrasty" position than others. From my vantage point, about 2 miles east of Girard it was difficult to tell if the tornado was on the ground until I saw a power flash. I have virtually no still photos from the day as I fail at low light photography, something I need to work on, obviously.

Write up with photos/vid here on mah blog: http://www.nicknoltewx.com/blog/2011/04/25/april-19-2011-girard-il-ef-3-tornado/