6/2/2005-----Tornado? ***Large Picture Size***

[Amos Magliocco]

Dave Fick from Texas has convincing video of a white cone tornado from June 2. I'll ask him about producing some grabs.

 

[Alex Fisher]

Thanks for the info Skip.

 

[Scott Olson]

Originally posted by nickgrillo
Nope, no REAL tornadoes... I know quite a few chasers that were on that storm. When the report came in, I wasn't really surprised to see the report of a big tornado - because the storm was an absolute monster on radar. Yet, as soon as I started to talk with other chasers from the day... They all said they saw nothing in the way of tornadoes. I believe it was Scott Webberpal who was VERY close to the location of the \"tornado\" report, and he said himself it was falsed.

Mike Hollingshead, Amos Magliocco, Eric Nguyen, Scott Webberpal, Pete McConnell and dozens of other chasers were on that storm - no tornadoes.

I was chasing that day with Pete McConnel and yes we did see a bonafide supercell tornado that was on the ground for several minutes. This was on the second more southern supercell. I know we were southwest of Burlington, CO. Now the first cell farther north put down a lot of RFD and little spins (which could have concievably been tornadoes but more likely gustandoes) but nothing very convicining.


RFD on first supercell causes several spin-ups and large dust cloud.

Spinner that occured for twenty seconds about 1000m away from RFD dust.



Distant picture of tornado SW of Burlington, CO after about three minutes of being on the ground. (My vidcaps are terribly out of focus but ask Pete and he has at least 2 minutes from a little debris cloud extending to the cloud base.)

Hope this helps!
Scott Olson.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Scott I have that same thing on video sw of Burlington. I couldn't decide what it was, but opted to not count it as a tornado. At first on video it looked like there was condensation above it in the form of a 'funnel', but a harder look and I could see it was just how the clouds lined up. There was a good deal of undercutting from the north and just figured it was more of a very low level spin up from that. Since you quoted Nick here with what I said I personally saw, I thouhgt I'd comment on this. I never said there was no tornado for sure, just that I personally never saw one. I was in terrible viewing contrast for a good while on my stupid navigating. There certainly could have been something before I got to it nw of Limon as well as just after Limon while I was se of it in poor contrast. But, the thing sw of Burlington I did see and did not count it as a tornado. Perhaps it was a legit supercell tornado, but from my perspective I figured I was less sure it was a tornado than I was that it was. When it is hard to say I think it best to just say it isn't. All in ones perspective I guess.

 

[Scott Olson]

Originally posted by Mike Hollingshead
Scott I have that same thing on video sw of Burlington. I couldn't decide what it was, but opted to not count it as a tornado. At first on video it looked like there was condensation above it in the form of a 'funnel', but a harder look and I could see it was just how the clouds lined up. There was a good deal of undercutting from the north and just figured it was more of a very low level spin up from that. Since you quoted Nick here with what I said I personally saw, I thouhgt I'd comment on this. I never said there was no tornado for sure, just that I personally never saw one. I was in terrible viewing contrast for a good while on my stupid navigating. There certainly could have been something before I got to it nw of Limon as well as just after Limon while I was se of it in poor contrast. But, the thing sw of Burlington I did see and did not count it as a tornado. Perhaps it was a legit supercell tornado, but from my perspective I figured I was less sure it was a tornado than I was that it was. When it is hard to say I think it best to just say it isn't. All in ones perspective I guess.

First, dis-regard my little vid capture of it as it is unrepresenative of what we saw. All I was pointing out was that from the vantage point of myself & Pete McConnel it clearly appeared to be a bona-fide supercell tornado which was first present with some low level rotation and debris and eventually extended well into the cloud base for several minutes with rotation evident the entire time. I wish Pete was a member on ST and he could post some better video or video grabs from this but we both have concured that the storm did indeed produce a tornado. I certainly can understand that if one cannot certainly discerin that it is a tornado to not count it as such ( I am the exact same way and have discounted several possible tornadoes when I could not visually verify or did not have the photographic evidence to support it). In our case we reviewed Pete's video and we were both reasonably convienced even before reviewing Pete's video because we viewed dust getting drawn into a circulation that extended into the cloud base.