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2012-03-02 MISC: IN/KY/TN/AL/IL/MO

Jeff, that West Liberty footage is great. It definitely reminds one that it's not the wind itself you have to worry about, but the flying debris. There was no way you could be standing anywhere in that yard and not get hit by something. Also, one of the structures get hit in the background. It almost appears that heavy white smoke then goes pouring out. It appeared to be too heavy and too long of a duration to be condensation due to pressure drop. Anyone have any opinions at to what it is?
 
Jeff, that West Liberty footage is great. It definitely reminds one that it's not the wind itself you have to worry about, but the flying debris. There was no way you could be standing anywhere in that yard and not get hit by something. Also, one of the structures get hit in the background. It almost appears that heavy white smoke then goes pouring out. It appeared to be too heavy and too long of a duration to be condensation due to pressure drop. Anyone have any opinions at to what it is?

My guess would be it's either insulation foam/dust material or water from water pipes. The clip from the pool confirms that water looks like that when being moved around at that speed.
 
I was reading the damage survey information from this event on NWS Louisville's page. I came across this survey for an EF1:
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/Image/lmk/03022012_ClarkEF1.htm

The track sits almost on top of the southern Indiana EF4. They're so close in fact, I thought this tornado might be a satellite or suction vortices of the main EF4. However, Louisville says their survey and eyewitness accounts show that it came from a second, different supercell that was trailing the first that produced the EF4:

Photographs taken during a Civil Air Patrol flight corroborate interviews with residents along the damage path that there were intermittent touchdowns of a weaker tornado with the second supercell to pass over the area Friday afternoon. The second storm, which pummeled the recently devastated area with hail up to the size of softballs, followed nearly the same path as the first supercell.

Here's a level 2 animation I produced with the EF4 and EF1 tornado tracks plotted:
http://youtu.be/A0zFpEhVgs4?t=3m51s
Watch video >

Although Louisville says the storms followed the same track, the second supercell clearly took on a more southerly path. The EF1 as indicated by that animation would be on the forward flanking downdraft of that supercell. While certainly possible, I've never seen anything like this while chasing. We were in the same position for the second supercell, and I shot it's approach and didn't see any other tornadoes:
http://youtu.be/0hBCiuL_iFw?t=11m13s

It's certainly possible the tornado was rain wrapped and occurred embedded within the FFD and inflow interface or further back toward the RFD, and that it might have been just a ground circulation with no visible condensation funnel. I just found it odd and worth sharing how close the track was to the EF4, its unusual position on the supercell, and how we managed to shoot that storm without seeing it.
 
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