I was on the Aberdeen cell also. I got one brief tornado(not reported) and numerous funnels. I was questioning whether or not there was a brief spinup during the same time as there was the dust wall the RFD kicked up. If you got any video or pictures of this Justin I would like to see a picture. I will check my video once I get home. I am at a hotel now and the 2 inch screen on my video camera isn't big enough for me to review video closely.
I got on the storm shortly after it went up. Here is a picture of the updraft as I approached from the West.
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The storm took a little while to get organized, but after the tornado warning was issued, it started to develop a nice wall cloud. Here is the only picture I took (other than the updraft) with my digital camera. I don't know what time this was at.
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The storm seemed to loose its intensity for a little while during the middle of its life. This lasted for about 30 minutes to the best of my recollection. I don't know what the deal was. Anyways, it started to exhibit good structure after this short break and developed a nice wall cloud with strong rotation. I was about 2 miles West of the meso when a funnel made it about half way to the ground. This was at 8:25. I didn't have my camera out so I don't have a picture of this funnel. A few minutes after this is when the tornado touched down. This first picture is of the funnel when it peaked out from the wall cloud.
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Here is a video grab from a few seconds later when you could see the dust getting picked up at the surface.
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I am not surprised this tornado didn't get reported. The roads weren't very good and I didn't see any chasers during this time. You would have had to of been quite close(a couple miles) to be able to see the brief rotation at the surface and given the road networks I doubt many were able to see it. There was another good funnel a couple of minutes later. The time of this funnel was 8:32. I am going to save my tornado video to the web and contact NWS if they don't have a tornado report up by tomorrow.
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It was a decent chase day. I was expecting better/more tornadoes, but I am happy with the one weak tornado I got. It was tough avoiding the wildlife today. I almost hit several pheasants, a deer, and a turkey. After busting yesterday in Montana I feel like I have partially redeemed myself. Hopefully Tuesday will bring more tornadoes. I am probably going to take it easy tomorrow and charge batteries. I might chase if it looks like there is some tornado potential, but going off of the glimpse I got of the 00Z NAM I don't see much in the way of tornadoes tomorrow. I might have gotten a second tornado today if there was in fact a spinup when the RFD threw up the large dust wave. I was a few miles away and driving at the time and the dust was obscuring my view so I really have no idea what I was looking at. I do know that the wall cloud was very close to the ground if it didn't produce. Hopefully someone else can shed some light on this. Congratulations to everyone else who got the tornado today.
