2011-06-20 REPORTS: IA/NE/KS/OK/TX

[Andy Jackson]

I initially settled on chasing around the Columbus, NE area. I ended up farther south because of the better surface heating. Sure enough towers started blowing up south of York. I watched the main storm around Henderson, NE produce a nice funnel (I'm not sure if it touched down). The storm then began developing a nice mesocyclone and eventually dropped a tornado just south of Bradshaw. I'm not sure how long this tornado tracked but it was pretty long. I filmed it from the 34 and tried to keep up with it as it went on a northern track. Good tornado I'm not sure how the damage weighed out but I have not heard of any injuries so that is good. I did hear on the radio that some of those boxcars (See first image) got blown off of the tracks, will wait till the survey is done.

Some video captures:

Right before it crossed the 34:

This day did pretty much played out better than I expected, I just wasn't anticipating the amount of tornadoes to the southwest/west, interesting.

 

[Stan Rose]

Woke up early for a long drive through the torrential rains in E CO. Didnt want to drive 600 miles, so was hoping the HRRR would verify with the cell coming out of KS, and it did, tho i was surprised it went tornadic so early. Finally caught it as it reformed to the north, and saw a real nice cone tornado near Pleasanton, NE. Tried to catch the York storm but road flooding slowed me down. Storm motions then went hyperspeed. An exhausting but satisfying chase.

 

[Joe Halvorson]

Woke up and went to class not expecting to have to leave the state of Iowa for the day's chase. Looked at models progression around 11am and decided that myself and a large group of Iowa State students in Ames for the summer needed to book it over to Nebraska. We saw the storm fire up on radar near Kearney/Grand Island, NE and decided that would be our target storm. Exited the highway near York and within 10 minutes we saw the Bradshaw tornado drop a couple miles to our SW. We continued to follow the storm and ended up witnessing the full life cycles of both the Bradshaw and Stromsburg tornadoes.

A few video captures of the tornadoes:




Video (First two links are from the Bradshaw, NE stovepipe and the last three are of the York, NE tornado)
Watch video >

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhjlkpK7kuI&feature=channel_video_title
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MSlSWbnNUk&feature=channel_video_title

Watch video >

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxN2pbpMVVo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA9lpLdV6JY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HGKfbfGBH0&feature=channel_video_title

 

[JeffGonzales]

Video of my chase. got on the storm just as it was forming. We got a nice short lived white tornado that has a breif spin up near Eldorado, NE. Then caught this long lived stove pipe near Bradshaw, NE.
Watch video >

 

[edward oneal]

Chased North from Dodge to near Norton KS, nothing to exciting until was South of Norton when spotted a Tornado off to my NW. Did not have a good camera with me to capture good picture from the distance I was from the storm so sorry for poor quality of the pictures.http://www.flickr.com/photos/27494159@N04/sets/72157626886736147/

 

[Eugene Thieszen]

Oklahoma Landspout Tornado

(Mods: Add OK)

Was unable to get up to Nebraska to the "good stuff" due to work commitments, but the Oklahoma setup provided storms of interest as well, which is good for Oklahoma in June. Since landspouts are not as common in Oklahoma as in Colorado and Nebraska I thought a brief log with pics might be of interest.

I set up initially at Hennessey to wait for any storm that might fire on the dryline, but to no avail. Every time a tower would go up, the base was quickly eroded from below. Eventually headed N to the Enid area to take a look at storms back-building on the cold front. Met up with Brendon Lindsey at the SR74/SR15 Jct about 7 miles N of Garber. The thin line of high-based severe storms had a number of small circulations on it as it developed. A classic set up for brief landspouts, and we were not disappointed.

Cloud-based circulation to the N of our position. Visually, it looked like a very small mesocyclone:

This landspout formed about 2 miles NW of our position at 6:45 CDT:


Close-up of the ground circulation:


Close-up of the cloud-based rotation above:


The spout lasted 4 or 5 minutes and eventually was enveloped in RFD-like dust and precipitation. We continued to move down the line as it back-built SW and noted several more cloud-based circulations, but no further landspouts.

 

[Jeff Duda]

I love chasing Nebraska! The state is so modest in how much severe weather it gets, but the terrain and road network are among the tops in tornado alley. It's a shame more tornado events don't occur there.

Despite my horrendous pessimism for this setup, I opted to chase anyway since it was somewhat close and I figured it would be my last chase of the season. Chase partner Logan and I agreed to keep our expectations low.

After repeatedly adjusting our target due to the evolution of the system, we ended up approaching the new development along the arced dryline that made its presence known well on KUEX. We came south on 81 and stopped just west of Henderson where we saw a funnel cloud to the southwest under a rain free base. After it dissipated we got caught in some inflow with heavy rain and wind driven hail. I think that was due to the couplet that was west of the area where we saw the funnel cloud. I saw a rope in the air from a reported tornado as we were heading east on I-80 to reposition. We then took some large hail (1"-2" in diameter) while sitting on state route 93A/Road B near U.S. 34. We were watching a very low contrast feature several miles to our W/WSW at this point. I can't say anything definitive, but I wonder if there was a tornado in there. After repositioning northeast we caught the Bradshaw tornado already on the ground to our southwest. We moved back west on U.S. 34 and managed to capture the tornado from about 1/2 mile away as it crossed. I saw the TIV's headlight on the other side of the tornado, so I'm wondering how close Sean came to getting in that. This tornado looked eerily similar to the one that barely missed Aurora almost exactly two years ago.

We fell behind it during that crossing but due to Nebraska's amazing road network and well constructed dirt roads, we were able to catch up and saw the rope out of that tornado. We kept moving north and saw great stucture of the meso, then got a glimpse of the second tornado, a stovepipe, west of Stromsburg. Saw the rope out of that one as well. Continued with the storm to Columbus and then to Madison where we encountered quarter sized hail and numerous StickNet stations deployed along state route 32 along with some mobile radar units from TTU. Called it quits after that and tailed the QLCS/MCS home. Great lightning display.

YouTube video:

Pictures
First funnel SW of Henderson:

Rope from I-80:

This is a very contrast enhanced shot that shows something suspicious on the horizon. I see a cone shape in there, but can't tell if it's on the ground or not. You be the judge.

Bradshaw tornado:

The second tornado under a clear cut mesocyclone:

 

[Jeremy Jones]

I too chased the Northern Oklahoma target. Kept playing the "Tail end Charlie" storms. I knew once I reached Lamont, Ok...and saw every base connected with the base to the north of it, that the tornado threat was pretty much done. So, I settled for some nice leisurely structure photography...which is fine by me any day!

The following photo was shot on US 74 South of Lamont, Ok.

I was also able to shoot a really neat "Gustnado" type dust devil at semi-close range...

Watch video >

 

[Sean Ramsey]

I too played "Tail End Charlie" with the linear line that dipped into northern Oklahoma. I ended up east of Enid on I-35 and got quite a few structure shots.

 

[Josh VandenTop]

This day started out looking around Sioux Center to find someone to fix the tie rod that broke at 4 am coming home from Sunday's chase (luckily in town). Luckily found someone to fix it then worked til 3. Brent Koops and I left and headed for Norfolk, Ne once there we blasted south and caugh up with a great storm west of Osceola, Ne or south of Silver Creek. Shortly after we started west down a gravel road we found one of the most amazing tornadoes that I've seen. Here are some pictures for now. Video will come up later.

 

[George Dikun]

Intercepted a few tornadoes near Poole, NE.

 

[Travis Wilson]

I hit a deer coming back from McCool, minor damage but destroyed my radiator and grill, and spent the night in Hill City, KS. After getting towed to Hays, I rented a pickup and went after the NW KS storm. Caught up beside it at Long Island KS where it was tornado warned and had a strong velocity couplet. I didn't see a tornado, but the updraft looked scary:

Later I was able to catch the Bradshaw tornado from its backside:

 

[Brett Roberts]

I probably should've sat this whole two-day setup out and kept my largely screwup-free 2011 season intact. Yesterday was one of those spectacles so rare that even scoring a couple legitimate tornadoes isn't necessarily enough to keep you from feeling like complete failure when all's said and done. Just sucks to have a chase that might be rated a "7" or "8" from an objective standpoint, but then realize that "7" or "8" puts your catches below 80% of folks who were out that same day.

No need to retell all the gory details here, but suffice it to say, the theme of the day was playing catch-up and arriving on storms just after they produced their best and/or most visible tornadoes. Having started in GRI, it's particularly gut-wrenching to watch the imagery pour in from the York Co. storm, which I never caught up to until well after it was done producing.

With that, here are my scraps. Arrived on the NW KS psuedo-cold-core monstrosity way late near the KS-NE border. Updraft looked insane, but rain wrapping of the circulation was exceptionally frustrating, knowing that hours of dry wedges and satellites had just ensued. First image shows possible white elephant trunk roping out on the left (south) end of the shaft; second is a pano stitch of four 10 mm shots giving an overview of the structure.

Right along the state line, I observed a suspicious dark area within the expansive rain/hail shaft to my W. I passed several chasers and saw various others on SN around this time (NW of Long Island), and would love to hear their thoughts on what may or may not have been back in there. There was even dusty red inflow from the N that you can make out streaming in from the right side on this image. Should've gotten closer to check it out, but road options were beyond abysmal here.

A bit later, caught this brief truncated cone/elephant trunk near Mascot, NE, from the last occlusion before the storm dissipated, which proved to be the highlight of my day.

Raced up towards EAR and got on the next storm that had initiated near Holdredge, but rain wrapping precluded any views of the reported wedge for me. Blasted E in time to watch the Pleasanton stovepipe tease me from behind hills and powerlines, and had to settle for out-the-window shots at 75 mph.

 

[Hank Schyma]

Caught the Pleasanton Nebraska tornado. Approached from the West, parked on a hill and realized the tornado was moving southwest... Right towards me. It carved a figure 8 in someones field point blank. Three days in a row of tornado intercepts, however ive waited my entire life for this one. After this tornado dissipated i briefly glanced down at the maps. when i looked up there was a crazy straw of a funnel cloud that roped out in seconds... Can anyone confirm a touchdown with this one? Thanx n enjoy
Watch video >

 

[George Dikun]

Caught the Pleasanton Nebraska tornado. Approached from the West, parked on a hill and realized the tornado was moving southwest... Right towards me. It carved a figure 8 in someones field point blank. Three days in a row of tornado intercepts, however ive waited my entire life for this one. After this tornado dissipated i briefly glanced down at the maps. when i looked up there was a crazy straw of a funnel cloud that roped out in seconds... Can anyone confirm a touchdown with this one? Thanx n enjoy

Based on what I can gather from our listed positions, your description is identical to the pictures 3 and 4 that I posted in post 11. The second picture is of the tornado right before it, which I believe to be the one you said was coming toward you. The rope tornado in both accounts appeared very quickly after the first one, and it was very thin. It did in fact touch down.