2019-05-17 Reports

Joined
May 21, 2011
Messages
163
Location
North-central Nebraska
Going through some older pics, I found this tornado photo from ~ 5 p.m. near Culbertson, NE. The initial storm had made its way up from Kansas into southwestern NE and formed tornadoes amidst a lot of dust. Actually, there were two areas of rotation in contact with the ground; one closer to me was slowly spinning and reduced visibility dramatically, and I had to get out of the way. When I got turned around, I then saw the faster-spinning one, still dusty, but becoming less so, and shot the photo. It moved fairly quickly at 40 mph. At that time, I was into manual focus, vintage, Nikon lenses, so I remember trying to keep my cool while focusing! DSC_0331.jpeg
 
I am guessing this is the same one I saw, but I was looking at it from the south through a lot of rain and hail, so your view is much better. Although the time I had on it was more like 5:40. Wondering what direction you were looking when you took this picture. MODS: I am pretty sure there is already a thread for this event, so you might want to merge these posts into that existing thread.
 
John, your time's more accurate than what it says on my digital-camera file :) ! BTW, I checked for daily reports on this, and didn't see them.
But, I was looking north on State Highway 17 then. I had left McCook behind after spending a brief amount of time there.
I was into being present for the funnel formation, so I got chased away from the cell a couple of times, because I didn't want it to drop on me.
I used a Nikon Df, read D4 sensor, but have since gotten swayed by cameras with more than 16 full-frame megapixels: Better for crops.
 
Well, you were in the right place when it dropped. I was farther down 17, outside the hook/rain (and hail) curtains. There was some big hail in there; I found a hailstone that was still at least 2.5" when I came through that area 40 minutes or so later, after the McCook tornado.
 
That is a nice view of that tornado. I was caught in the extensive RFD dust plume to the south of it that blocked much of my view. FYI there is a ST reports thread on this day here:

 
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