5/22/04 NOW: NE,KS,OK,IA

[Lance Maxwell]

Originally posted by Scott Roberts
Lance, are you still nowcasting for Mike Gribble? If so, where is he?

I was nowcasting for him earlier, but haven't heard back from him since I pointed him in the direction of the Thayer cell. Otherwise, I have been nowcasting for Jason Montano who I just spoke to -- he reports major damage in Wilber.....hopefully everyone is ok. He has been forced to turn around back into the line of storms due to hot wires all over the roads in the Wilber-Clatonia area.

BTW-howd you know i was nowcasting for him?

 

[mikegeukes]

Reports of tornadoes now in Kansas

Mike

 

[Tim Jones]

My chase partner, Mike Pingel and I just witnessed 6 tornadoes between Stuart to Adel, IA. More later.

Tim

 

[Scott Roberts]

Lance, either you or he mentioned it earlier in the thread ;-)

I'm looking forward to seeing his video...and you and I need to get together for when you come back this way ;-)

 

[Lance Maxwell]

Originally posted by Scott Roberts
Lance, either you or he mentioned it earlier in the thread ;-)

I'm looking forward to seeing his video...and you and I need to get together for when you come back this way ;-)

Haha, I am confused, head back what way?

 

[mikegeukes]

Damage in Lancaster County

0930 PM TORNADO HALLAM 40.54N 96.79W
05/22/2004 LANCASTER NE AMATEUR RADIO

SEVERAL HOUSES DESTROYED AND POWER LINES DOWN REQUESTING
A LOT OF HELP. MEDICAL CALL REQUESTED TO HALLAM NEBRASKA
AS MAJOR DAMAGE.

0858 PM TORNADO 1 N FIRTH 40.55N 96.60W
05/22/2004 LANCASTER NE AMATEUR RADIO
ONE MILE NORTH OF FIRTH WITH HEAVY DAMAGE

I been keepiing a log of tornadoes tonight:
http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/viewtopic....p?p=20819#20819

Mike

 

[Lance Maxwell]

Ya, Mike, Jason Montano is in that area and has been unable to get out of there as all the roads are covered with debris and power lines.

Jason stopped to help the rescue effort in Wilber, NE and described several homes as being "totally blown away."

 

[John Sickels]

Cap may be breaking in northern Kansas. Storms rapidly developing NW of Concordia area. Looks squally in nature, and is physically attached like a tail to the tornadic cells in SE Nebraska.

 

[Stuart Robinson]

Had a very close shave with two rain wrapped tornados near to Wilber and Hallam, South of Lincon Nebraska - did not see any tornadoes - we have seen much damage - I fear that there have been some injuries – reports of people trapped in houses. This has not been fun!

 

[mikegeukes]

I kept a log of tornadoes during this outbreak, I have taken it
down and you should refer to the SPC Storm Reports and the
local NWS offices local storm reports for the latest reports.

Mike

 

[Stuart Robinson]

looks bad :cry:

0930 PM TORNADO HALLAM 40.54N 96.79W
05/22/2004 LANCASTER NE AMATEUR RADIO

SEVERAL HOUSES DESTROYED AND POWER LINES DOWN REQUESTING
A LOT OF HELP. MEDICAL CALL REQUESTED TO HALLAM NEBRASKA
AS MAJOR DAMAGE.

1012 PM TSTM WND DMG FIRTH 40.53N 96.60W
05/22/2004 LANCASTER NE AMATEUR RADIO

ENTIRE TOWN OF FIRTH BLOCKED OFF WITH DEBRIS, UPROOTED
TREES AND BUILDINGS.

 

[J.B. Dixon]

Stu......After stopping at Norris High School (3 mi north of Firth), it is definitely NOT good, as tomorrow's damage pictures will show. That was a monster circulation.

 

[Larry J. Kosch]

Chase Report of Columbus and Hallam Storms

I got an e-mail from a fellow storm chaser, Bryan Bjorkman, who lives in Lincoln, NE. This e-mail was sent to Kevin, his best friend and chase partner, who is serving his country overseas (somewhere in the Middle East). After consultation with a moderator, I got his permission to reprint his e-mail in the NOW thread because it was a third-party chase report. Most interesting aspect was a flyover of the Hallam storm track on the day after. Read and enjoy. 8) LJK.

Ok, I made it back from the airport early enough to send you a report of my experience's last night. To start with Kevin, I'm also sending this to a stormchaser here in Lincoln who lives not far from me. His name is Larry Kosch. I talked to him a little on the phone yesterday after seeing his posts on stormtrack.org.

Anyway, I had been watching the wx all day via the net checking in also to the forum at stormtrack. How's that saying go? Something like \"If your not the best, surround yourself with the best\" Well that's what I did. Everyone was either enroute our had already arrived in our area for what was looking to be a big outbreak. By 430 I was getting antsy. Everyone thought the hotspot was from lincoln to York and down to the the Beatrice Fairbury area. Around 430 some big storms were already putting tornados down the problem was they were all the way out at McCook. Shortly after that some cells starting going up around Columbus. Sam (my 11 year old daughter) and I jumped in the already gased up car and headed out leaving Jodie (my wife) instructions on how to be a nowcaster and read radar. BTW, Samantha had been watching the wx all day with me and was just as excited as I was about chasing, so there was no way I could leave her behind. Besides I didn't plan on putting us onto anything too close.

As we were headed north almost to David City the Columbus area became tornado warned. I moved right along to get up there. I knew where the cell was because we could see it towering, looking thru a broken cumulus layer. I was very excited because I knew the road thru David city should put us on the right rear of the storm. As we came upon David City we could already see the wall cloud out in front of us, still about 13 miles away. This storm as far as I know was a doppler indicated tornado warning. We continued right up to about 1mile south of the wall cloud along with many other \"professional chasers\" and waited. We followed this storm staying on the south side of it into the small village of Linnwood never seeing a tornado form. From there the only way east was on gravel. Rain had already fallen so I wasn't eager to take my car down a wet county road with a dangerous storm just to our north. I saw a news channel 6 blazer sitting on the county road so I pulled up and asked \"what do ya think?\" Like I knew what I was talking about. Well they were lost. They were looking for the town of Linnwood and wanted to know how to get east. I told them \" That's Linwood and this road will take you east but there's baseball size hail in that storm and I'm not going to drive into that on a gravel road. Guess who was in that blazer? Jim Flowers from Channel 6 and one of the other wx casters. Anyway they took off after that storm and I called Jodie to find out where another storm might be brewing. She said a cell had just \"popped up\" on radar down by Superior heading northeast and it was growing real fast. Soooo, of we went heading back towards Seward. Now here's where I made my first mistake. (Some would argue that this was not my first mistake I'm sure.lol.) We hadn't eaten and by now it was getting close to 7pm so we stopped at Amigos in David City. Never stop at amigos if your in a hurry they are so slow. So we wasted at least 15 mins altogether and that was the drive thru.

When we were coming up on Seward I called Jodie again for an update. She said the storm was getting huge and still was moving northeast. The radio said that there was a tornado on the ground by Western which is southwest of Crete. I decided that it was to risky to go south at the Crete interchange so I continued to hw 77 out of Lincoln and head south. Between the radio reports and Jodie I had already determined that I needed to get out in front of the storm and beat feet to get around it to the south side. I could clearly see the huge storm and thought I was far enough south of it so we pulled off of 77 heading west on Hallam Rd. I knew where I was from flying over it so much. I could see the Hallam power plant off to my right. At this point I was in inner turmoil I wanted to go straight, but the hail in all these storms was huge and I feared getting pummeled if I tried to punch into any rain to take a shortcut to the other side. Well my mind was made up for me. We were sitting on Hallam road 4 miles east of Hallam when the radio reported a tornado warning for Hallam. At that point I was not going straight. We turned around and jumped onto 77 heading south again this time FAST. We got south of Cortland and followed 77 as it turns to the west. Got to the west end before it turns south again and pulled of to watch the storm move thru the area we had just been. I never did see the tornado. Later reports from storm chasers who I talked to on the side of the road who had been on the storm from it initiation said that the tornado by the time it got to Hallam was completely dust and rained wrapped and unless you knew it was there you would never have seen it. By then it was dark and not fun anymore. If you saw the radar then you would know that this turned into a \"snake of a line of storms\" draping all the way down to Concordia KS. We ended up waiting in Beatrice for a letup in the line reported to us by Jodie on the radar. I headed back home at 1030. As we were making our way north another tornado warning went up with a spotted tornado on the ground at Plymouth moving to the east towards Beatrice. By then all I wanted was to be home.

Ok, I was scheduled to fly skydivers today down at Crete. We woke to overcast cool sky's but by 10 am it was starting to break up. I headed to the airport intent on flying one way or the the other. Well at CEK the sky's were still about 1000 brkn. so me and another pilot and Joel Sysel who is a skydiver and videographer head out, not to jump but to photograph and video the damage. WOW..

We took off at about 11am from CEK and headed southwest to pick up the tornado track with plans to follow it northeast for a ways. There was spotty damage southwest of Wilber but and we got closer to Wilber the damage path was obvious. The severe damage path south of Wilber was one half to three quarters of a mile wide! And I mean solid there was nothing spotty about it. Anything in that half to 3 quarters was destroyed. Flying over the creek that runs south over Wilber was amazing because of the path of destruction done to the large area of trees. In our opinion, this one wedge, as some who saw it say it was, stayed on the ground from southwest of Wilber all the way to the east side of Bennett where it started to become smaller but was still on the ground.

Some of the areas that we saw to give you an idea were Hallam which the tornado literally engulfed. The tornado when it went thru Hallam extended from south of Hallam to north of Hallam probably about a quarter mile on both sides. (Hallam isn't very big). Its a mess. All along the path towards Bennett houses or barns or both have been leveled or severely damaged. Norris school took a direct hit as well as acreages on both the north and south sides. It also hit the little berg of Holland but by this time it had shrunk to about a fourth of the largest size. Amazing to me not all the cows are dead that are scattered around the country in the path of this tornado. There were some that we saw that were dead but others still standing.

We headed back to CEK pretty much on a straight line and north of the path of the big tornado. Just west of stagecoach lake another small, probably F1 touched down and tore up one farm place and some trees. It was only on the ground for about three quarters of a mile.

Boy Kevin I wish you could have been here for this but I know your on vacation in the Middle East. We definately need to get some type of mobile radar access. That would be a huge help. They'll be more this year and next so by the time you get back I'll be a little more educated on these amazing storms. Larry, I'm all ears if you have anything to teach. There's so much to learn about stormchasing, its amazing. Hopefully I'll have another report within the next few weeks of another chase. Bryan

PS. The guys who took stills and video of the damage are going to put it on a web site. I'll let you both know the address when I have it.
The Bjorkmans

www.myadvopage.com/bbjorkman