6/11/08 DISC: IA/NE/KS

[Chad Cowan]

The Iowa governor just confirmed that the scout camp DID have a weather radio.

According to this quote from a CNN article, I'm not sure they were using the weather radio. Or it is possible that they received the warning via radio but didn't act until they had a visual of the tornado. In either case, there probably isn't much more they could have done if the structures in which they took shelter were destroyed.

"We were sitting there watching lightning ... and we saw it [the tornado] come around the end of a bluff toward the entrance of the camp," Logsdon said. "So we flipped on the siren and the youth staff members ran to the assigned shelters."

The adult leader ordered everyone to get under the tables.

"All of a sudden, two seconds later, the tornado was on top of us," Logsdon said. "I know it picked up our adult leader's car and threw it 50 yards, easy."

 

[Van DeWald]

The damage in northeast Kansas is remarkable, but doesn't seem to be getting the press it deserves. There were also 2 deaths in Kansas last night as well.

 

[Dick McGowan]

Here's a link to where we were in relation to the 2nd Salina storm where we could see several powerflashes in relation to the damage reported in South Salina.

Exif shows the times of these, times of powerflashes were between 9:39 and 9:41 (that we have down).

21:30

21:33

21:36

21:38

I thought I took pictures of the power flashes, but must have been shooting video. It was very difficult to make out any features on this storm from Salina to Manhattan, as the area of interest was obscured by rain (from our position). I'm not much of a night chaser after May 4th of last year, and will only chase at distances I'm comfortable with.

 

[Mike Peregrine]

Looks like the fatalities occurred near Soldier in Jackson County. I'm not really surprised, as the storm was moving through an exceptionally strong cycle at this point, and at the time the tornado visually appeared like it could be of the strong variety. It was also dangerous from our perspective because it was truncated and large (becoming wrapped), which would have been difficult for farms and small communities to spot. I was pretty worried in Holton because the power went off about five to ten minutes before the tornado arrived, and I'm assuming that's why there were no sirens. I was also worried because it appeared to be close. It may have just appeared much closer than it truthfully was, but I was ready to book south if we needed to. Some law enforcement was out with the lights on attempting to warn. We also saw two law enforcement either trying to get to a better vantage point south of town, or fleeing town. I don't know. They were definitely in the process of scrambling once the circulation passed. I do see the tornado in the video, so I'll have to spend some time (when I have it) grabbing it.

 

[Brian Stertz]

As most of the chasers have explained from last night's June tornadofest w/o many visuals...the rain-wrapped nature of the tornadoes made this one a pretty dangerous event. The lightning in itself was very prolific too. The amount of cg's that Mike and I observed (many at close range) was spectacular. The lightning was really impressive as the tornadic supercell moved into the Circleville,Soldier, and Holton KS area.

 

[Mike Peregrine]

Last night was yet another great example of finding the tornado by watching where the lightning was bugging out the most. Lightning was everywhere, but the crazy CGs were right up around the mesos again doing the single stroke thing. We commented on needing to wear sunglasses. It was blinding if you happened to be looking right at it.

There was one set of strokes as we were approaching the first storm near Steele City that was in all honesty one of the most incredible CGs of my life. It took 2-3 seconds for the thing to finish - - exploded horizontally across the sky first, then multiple vertical pulses hitting the ground. Oh if only there could have been a photo.

 

[Michael O'Keeffe]

Manhattan, KS tornado officially rated EF-4!

 

[Tim Stoecklein]

Just to keep it in prospective though, the EF4 rating was in a concentrated area relative to the overall track...

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/crnews/display_story.php?wfo=top&storyid=15350&source=0

I've just seen plenty of unbelievable pictures from the area in which the EF4 rating was applied. I'm just glad it didn't maintain that strength through its track into the heart of Manhattan.

 

[Mike Peregrine]

Added a quick screen grab of the Soldier/Circleville tornado to my original report here. May not be the best, but it provides an idea of the size of the tornado up there. It's probably a good thing that our eyes can better adjust to lightning than our cameras.

 

[Daniel Christianson]

In reguards to a tornado being reported 6 m n of elkhorn, and 168th and fort... it sure looks like it from some pics posted, but the locals here in town, and a guy i know who lives out in the Fort Street area, said on the left hand side of 168th and Fort, there was a roof ripped, twisted sideways. I havent seen any pics of it, didnt even think to go look today ... also on Hwy 36 i heard a Semi was spun around , ended up on the right hand side down in the ditch.. Keep in mind this is what i heard from people. Farmers should know right" ;-)

 

[Dustin Wilcox]

In reguards to a tornado being reported 6 m n of elkhorn, and 168th and fort... it sure looks like it from some pics posted, but the locals here in town, and a guy i know who lives out in the Fort Street area, said on the left hand side of 168th and Fort, there was a roof ripped, twisted sideways. I havent seen any pics of it, didnt even think to go look today ... also on Hwy 36 i heard a Semi was spun around , ended up on the right hand side down in the ditch.. Keep in mind this is what i heard from people. Farmers should know right" ;-)

That seems legit, I intercepted the area of rotation NW of Elkhorn and followed it East to HWY 31 at the Intersection of State Street, I had super strong cyclonic rotating rain curtains, at that point it was just pure rain and I had screaming West winds, I stuck with it down State Street, those of you familiar with State Street it is lined with trees, I had decent sized branches being launched across the road, I had to try and stay on the North side of the road when I could, at that point my winds had switched to ESE, I continued East on State Street enough to stay ahead of the danger before cutting North on 168th, near 168th and hwy 36 the rain let up and revealed a rotating bowl basically scraping the ground, tornado or not I am not surprised there was damage, within a 1/2 mile area winds went from a westerly component at 70+ MPH to Easterly at 70+MPH

 

[Chris Allington]

I am pretty sure I have a picture as I was briefly in the notch, there was a decent amount of rotation leading up to this feature but in the brief glimpse i had of it I couldn't discern any rapid motions because I was moving to the south at the same time, the structure as it approached HWY 31 to my west was pretty amazing.

Storm structure:

http://s27.photobucket.com/albums/c154/kasper_NE/?action=view&current=elkhornsupercell2.jpg

Tornado: (contrast and sharpness enhanced)

http://s27.photobucket.com/albums/c154/kasper_NE/?action=view&current=86cd32b7.jpg

 

[Dustin Wilcox]

What was your location and direction of view when you took that photo of what appears to be a tornado?

 

[Chris Allington]

What was your location and direction of view when you took that photo of what appears to be a tornado?

HWY 31 about 4-5 Mi N of Elkhorn looking WNW. This was just about a mile and a half or so before passing the State Street intersection, I should've got out the laptop and marked my location but I didn't even think about it since I knew the roads.