6/17/09: REPORTS NE/KS/IA/MO/SD/MN

[CraigFisher]

Started my day with a short travel to Steel City Nebraska and intercepted a storm. I got to far west on the cell and noticed a nicely shaped wall cloud to my NE by Odell Nebraska. Tried to make a move towards Odell, but in order to do so, I had to skirt the severe hail area of the storm. This left me wandering the roads of the Nebraska – Kansas border in torrential rain. What a pain! I missed the Odell Nebraska and the Oketo Kansas tornado. NWS OAX did give me a call during the Odell Tornado Warning as they had noticed on GR that I was close to the area. Didn’t get much for pictures on this storm.
Here is a video grab of the cell near Odell during the tornado warning.

Headed to central Nebraska as cap was eroding. Met with a cell at Alda Nebraska.
Wall cloud between Alda and Grand Island Nebraska.

The tornado passing south of Phillips Nebraska.

Had major PC issues at 2030 CDT, lost my streaming, GR, SN.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Chase images/account now up here on 2 pages...

http://www.extremeinstability.com/09-6-17.htm

 

[Brandon Lawson]

I woke up Wednesday morning and immediately starting calling everyone I knew to see who was going out from Norman. Sent a few messages back and forth from my computer to Gabe Garfield who had a previous engagement that he needed to attend. He recommended I shoot Jeff Snyder a message on ST. But before Jeff was even able to respond (sorry about that Jeff), I got a call from Curtis McDonald and Daniel Betten, who were already on the road, but willing to come back and pick me up if I wanted to come along. We picked up Matt Chatelain in Edmond, and had lunch with Matt's mom at the Braums in Perry, Oklahoma. I mention her because I feel she may have been the good luck charm I needed to break my long tornado drought. The rest is history as we raced off to Nebraska. I basically ditched a family get-together Wednesday night on a chance that Nebraska would go off in a big way, and it did. Here are a few video grabs from my camera, but nothing that hasn't already been seen.

We were able to get on the storm right as it began to gain some good rotation. Saw a few brief touch downs west of Grand Island, a brief gustnado across the street from Walmart in Grand Island, and eventually the last tornado/tornadoes of the day. Sorry about the quality. Just some quick video captures.

Humorously enough, Jeff and Dan, who I had abandoned earlier in the morning, ended up right next to the car I was with on a random dirt road. We ended up having a very similar view of the tornado.

 

[Damon Scott Hynes]

http://opensecrets.us/2009-06-17GrandIslandAuroraTornado.html

Story, photos and vid

 

[Ben Tillotson]

Hello, I'm new to ST. I was on the Grand Island storm. This was by far the best chase I've had, first good tornado experience! Took me a while to sort through the 6gb of pics from this day.




Storm north of Shelton.



These last two photos are at 10mm.

 

[Brad Nelson]

Austin, MN Tornado

Hey mods, could we please add MN into the threat subject line? Thanks!

I have uploaded all of my videos from each of the 3 tornadoes from this day in southern MN near Austin. My chaselog is on Page 3 of this thread if you would like to read. Quite the amazing day for many of the chasers out there! Just want to say very nice pictures and video from everyone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYb2YfF1skw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4jir7VJZ_k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUe3yff-sk0

 

[Paul Austin]

Aurora, NE video

Video is finally up here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C32ZQ7I_GM

Hope to have a structure time lapse and panorama stitch up soon.

 

[Doren Berge]

Obviously this is one of the most documented storms of the season. There is a lot of great video. Fun to see this from so many vantage points.

Joel Ewing and I finally getting around to adding our video to the pile. The Aurora Tornado from the west side. Up close and personal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi0DMbDefJ4

db

 

[Dan Robinson]

I followed a supercell through Appalachian mountain terrain in central WV last Wednesday. Just now getting around to compiling some video.

Video clip:
http://stormhighway.com/blog/june1709hdvideo.shtml

Photos:
http://stormhighway.com/blog/june1709a.shtml

8-frame panorama (extra large size):
http://stormhighway.com/blog/p-june1709pano1.shtml

 

[Tony Laubach]

http://www.tornadoeskick.com/index.php/logs/2009-season/308-20090617.html

I got around to posting the jist of this insane chase. I still have to include a variety of items, including the storms we intercepted early in the day in northeast Kansas. Obviously the Aurora tornado took center stage.

Included are three videos of various tornadoes as well as documented times of other circulations/tornadoes observed during the chase.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIXLbB-A14o

Several stills from the previously Aurora tornadic supercell as it enters York Nebraska during twilight. Small web size and compression kills the coolness of this a bit, but still kind of cool. I forget how many stills it was but think it is over 50, shot at 10mm. Would surely be a lot cooler at 1920x1080 far less compressed.

 

[Stephen Locke]

The Narka, Kansas Supercell

Six images.

 

[Stephen Locke]

The Aurora Tornado

Nine images.

 

[Scott Nicholson]

This is long overdue... I've (finally) converted and made available tornado/storm chasing videos from years past and posted them on the Videos page on my website at www.springwx.com. There are several videos available for viewing...and I'm adding more as I find archived storm chase videos in my collection.

The video available for this date is titled Aurora, NE Tornado:
I have never gotten closer to a tornado as I did with the Aurora, NE tornado on June 17, 2009. I was able to drive to within a couple hundred yards of this slow moving tornado. It was quite the experience! The EF2 tornado (winds between 111 and 135mph) was on the ground for 18 minutes, growing to a maximum width of a quarter mile. The RFD winds caused the damage to the Iams plant captured in this video. The chase ended after the tornado crossed the road in front of me and knocked power lines across the road.