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

[Stan Rose]

Heres another one of the Pleasanton stovepipe (looking east)

http://www.stanroseimages.com/photo/tornado_c

 

[Derek Weston]

Caught the Pleasanton Nebraska area tornado as well. Did get 'suckered' in to going west towards the emerging cell from KS -- figured we'd have further development in the area anyway -- but quickly noticed it was fizzling out and turned our attention to new updrafts just east of the beast that had sprung up west of Kearney.

Caught the storm going west on Grand Island road. Witnessed a stovepipe emerging from rain and watched from there as it eventually roped out in front of us. Made a play for the York storm but couldn't quite make it.

All in all... pretty good. Pleased that we were able to get out of the car and watch the storm a good five minutes while it was tornadoing... allowed me to take a bit of tripodded hi-def video as well. Could've gotten a bit closer, but would have sacrificed the enjoyment of the storm a bit.

Chased with Jared Farrer.

Included are a few pictures snapped with my 50mm.

 

[Tony Laubach]

Pleasanton, Nebraska Tornado

FULL JUNE 20, 2011 STORM CHASE/TORNADO REPORT HERE...

TWISTEX and I intercepted several tornadoes across southern Nebraska with my crew intercepting three tornadoes from Elm Creek to Ravenna. An odd series of conditions came together to end our chase with a pressure-induced sunroof blowout from a passing semi truck. Otherwise, it was easily the second best chase of the season (behind Canton) with the BEST EVER post-chase party!

 

[Josh VandenTop]

Finally got the video from Monday night up. Sorry the video is pretty rough, combine me not being a great camera man with a rough gravel road and its not as good as it should have been, anyway here's what we got.Watch video >

 

[Dean Baron]

Got a later start on the day than I wanted, leaving about 10:00 am. Was hoping the NAM was out to lunch and I wouldn't have to go almost to I80 to get tornadoes. As well all know, that's what happened. Regardless, got on the York/Polk county storm around 5:00 and watched tornadoes for 30-40 minutes. After the last tornado lifted I tried to stay with it but it went to crap after it got north of Columbus and nothing else really did much after that so started to head for home. In the end, drove 7 hours to watch tornadoes for about 40 minutes, turn around and head home. No complaints here though! Just not a typical chase day. Got a few pics and quite a bit of video.

First tornado I saw a couple miles south of Stromsburg, NE looking southwest:

Tornado #2 a couple miles north of Stromsburg looking west:

Videos:

 

[Joe Pudlik]

Me and my chase partner left home just after 9AM. We made it to the target area in time to make a play on the cell near York, NE.

Ended up with 3 tornadoes on the day...

 

[Michael Towers]

3 tornadoes helped heal the wounds of the previous day’s 800 mile bust. Caught the first one north of Holdrege, a truncated cone for the majority of it’s duration. A downdraft occlusion (est. 50mph+) preceded it’s picturesque rope out and ultimate dissipation. Caught two more near Pleasanton, a stout looking stovepipe and a long thin rope pendant from a relatively high base. I ditched the cell near Hazard as it became outflow dominant and ultimately got on a severe warned cell near York that never got organized in an already worked over environment.

Holdrege tornado:

Watch video >

 

[John Keeton]

Started the day in Kearny, NE thinking the show was going to be further east on I-80. At 1pm was heading back west towards the McCook area again. Ended up missing the cells W of US 283, and headed back E on I-80.

While on I-80 I had to pass through the SVR warned cell near Stockham. Before entering the cell all of the winds were strong from the south and there was no sign of rotation on radar. After entering the cell the winds shifted from the north, and the cell went TOR warned. I realized this was going to be a core punch. After exiting the core directly to my S near MP 338 there was a tornado in the field.



I exited I80 at the next exit, MP 342, and proceeded north to intercept again. During the time the Bradshaw tornado formed.





Watch video >

The video is choppy at first, as it is a new camcorder, and I hadn't made friends with it yet.

I followed the tornado for almost its entire life and got it roping out. About the 4m mark in the video you can see the damage path.

Afterwards, there wasn't anything in the area, and the cells in sw NE were to far away before dark so it ended the day on a high note.

John

 

[Doug Raflik]

My photos of the Bradshaw, NE area tornado!!!

 

[Skip Talbot]

Adam Lucio, Jennifer Brindley, Jonathan Williamson and I chased several supercells across central Nebraska intercepting a a small tornado near Stamford, NE and a gorgeous white stovepipe near Pleasanton, NE. Our first intercept was on the first storm of the day that was tracking north of Kansas. We could see the moisture wrapping around the top of the surface low and the storm tracking into a very favorably sheared environment so we decided go for an early intercept and then try and catch the main show in central NE later. We lingered for too long in the inflow notch and had a tornado spin up in the field next to us. It was a hairy moment as we raced to get ahead of the circulation, but we pulled ahead just fine and stopped to shoot it once we were in a safe position:

Supercells went up an arc across central NE and attempted to chase them from behind but they quickly congealed into a rather solid line. We were pleasantly surprised to see, despite a lack of recognizeable structure, a beautiful white stovepipe tornado spin up to our north. I was driving at the time so couldn't get any stills or video but here is one of Brindley's masterful captures:

After that we made a vain run for the Aurora, NE storm that produced the gorgeous tornadoes pictured above. We came in just in time to witness its permanent transition into an elevated HP and our chase was over. It was an amazing day for us despite missing some of the best tornadoes (can't get 'em all), and it turned out to be an even more amazing night as the TIV and Twistex teams converged where we were eating dinner in Columbus, NE and we wound up partying with them until the wee hours and had an absolute blast.

 

[Adam Lucio]

Finally got my log up from the day. Skip summed it up well though. I was able to pull a video still of our close encounter with the tornado, which can be seen on the log below along with pics and video.

http://www.chicagoillinoisstormchaser.com/062011-June-20th-2011-Nebraska-Tornadoes.php

Here is the Pleasanton tornado.

 

[Dan Melby]

Finally got my approval to post in this area. Thanks guys! Well this day ended up being the icing on the cake for the chase season. Initially targeted Columbus, NE, because the models indicated that this would be the best area. While heading to the target we noticed that the low stalled out and we made our trek south. We debated an almost an hour to whether or not go for the first tornado cell to the west. But we stuck to out guns and stayed to the east and it paid off big time. Intercepted the cell just as it was getting its act together. As it went tornado warned we thought we were looking at a possible rain wrapped tornado. At this time we experienced golfball to the occasional tennis ball hail when a new area developed to our south and dropped the main show. We were directly in the path of the tornado at one point. We readjusted to around 3/4 miles to the east and the rest was history.

 

[Jeff Duda]

Chase account is up on my site: http://www.meteor.iastate.edu/~jdduda/chasing/2011/062011.html

What a day!

 

[Bill Doms]

Wow, some incredible images in this thread! Ended up in a rather odd position between the Hampton and Bradshaw torns. Got to see both at the same time for a bit so these images are a little different.

Full chase account with video HERE

Started out southeast of York just north of I80.

Views from our position at N40°54.092', W97°51.376' northeast of Hampton

Looking southeast:

Looking north:

Never did figure out if the white ropey funnel ever did touch down to the west/southwest of the main Hampton track.

 

[Chris Allington]

A series of poor decisions and even worse luck screwed up what would have been an incredible day in my own back yard. Still wound up seeing the Bradshaw tornado from some distance west along US 34 before it wrapped in rain.