8/26/04 REPORTS: IA

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Hi All:
First, let me say I am green with envy. Fantastic pictures.
I DEFINITELY need new camera equipment.
I posted about this storm in the wrong place.
We were out for this one not far from home. We started south of Nebraska City. We were right under where we saw the rotation start which was about 6 miles south of the city and HWY 75. At that point it there was a lot of updraft and some horizontal motion. There was also a small clear spot in back. This was traveling east/barely northeast while Nebraska City to the north was being pummelled by heavy rain and wind. We had no rain and not even a breeze while 1 1/2 miles north they were soaked.
I video'd till it crossed the river into Iowa which was about 4 1/2 to 5 miles east of the location I was parked. Wish we could have been with one of you guys!
 
so is anyone interested in my damage pics, or should i just shut up and not contribute?

Why don't you invest some effort into finding a place on the web that offers free image hosting instead of expecting someone here to do it for you? There are a few old threads from ST that talk about how to do it:

http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=556

Or, research it on your own and find somewhere else to host. Regardless, this post doesn't belong here, see the target area rules.

Glen
 
Those are some really awesome pic's -

When I grow up I hope I can take pics like that - hehe just kidding.

Love those shots

By the way - just one more quick thing to add ... as I talked to several of the folks in the area (including the ones who had lost their home) I asked them if they had seen any actual photos of the tornadoes themselves yet ... none of them had ... and they were SO excited to get to see them on Mike's website, etc. It really seemed to help them just to see what had been outside the house while they were huddled in the basement. Just thought you might like to know that they appreciated it -

I think that's way cool!!!! Almost like closure...??? maybe..
 
Jon Davies sent the following links that might also be of interest concerning this event:

From his web page, this is his account:

http://members.cox.net/jondavies3/082604sw.../082604swia.htm

Dr. Ken Dewey and Jeremy Wesely at Lincoln also have a web page with info:

http://www.hprcc.unl.edu/nebraska/august26-2004wx.html

Jon's page has a nice breakdown of the environmental factors contributing to this event. It also shows what looks to be the roof coming off of that house I took a photo of later ... in a reply sent to him, I mentioned that this may also be that house's propane tank, which was either ejected high into the air or rolled ... in any event, it ended up in a field about a quarter mile away. Looks like it is probably that house either way, as it sits on top of a hill just like the vid cap shows. And from Jon's description, it is definitely in the correct area. The folks in that house know my relatives ... in fact, my cousin (also named Mike Peregrine) lives just over the hill from the tornado in that photo. My grandmother lives five miles due south. A little too close for comfort, I have to say - - -
 
Ok, I’ve finally had time to sit down and step thru the video frame by frame. It’s very poor quality, but I guess it will work. I’d also like to say I had my 13 yr old son along on this one and he bagged his first tornado! He was shooting the video, while I was trying to get some stills.

I had a hard time pin-pointing a target on this one, but finally left Omaha about 4:30 headed for Denison, IA. About a third of the way there Cain said “dad there’s something pretty big to the southâ€. I made a quick call to the house and had my wife check the SPC and the Stormtrack NOW thread and everyone was talking about the cell in Nebraska City, so I took the next road south and headed for Shenandoah, about 50+ miles away. I picked up Am 960 out of Shenandoah (excellent SW IA storm coverage) and they were talking about the storm splitting with the north part moving into Fremont County and the southern part headed more East towards Hamburg. About 20 miles N of Shenandoah I had to punch through the north cell, at the same time they issued the tor warning for Riverton. With the southern cell moving east at about 12 mph, I figured I would intercept just south of Shenandoah. But with the storm now tor warned I was not crazy about punching N to south again, especially with my son along. About five miles S of Shenandoah we ran into heavy rain and I slowed to a crawl down HWY 59 and eventually stopped just behind a local spotter for a few minutes. This was about the same time as the tornado west of Coin. The 2nd one we missed! With the skies clearing to our west, and the meso safely to our southeast, we again headed south and turned east on the Coin road. This put us directly west and behind the wall cloud. What a view it was! We hurried up and got through Coin while watching a funnel partially descend and go back up. Just east of Coin we topped a hill and saw a beautiful white rope which disappeared in seconds! We pulled over and shot the video of the Multi vortex tornado. I believe this was the tornado reported as north of College Springs, and the one which destroyed the farm house. I have stepped through the frames and can clearly identify 3 separate vortices in this frame. We were about ¾ of a mile ESE of the wall.

[Broken External Image]:http://members.cox.net/ksilvey/coin_01.jpg

Later that night the local news talked to an “eyewitness†who said the farm was hit by at least 2 tornados, so I think this was the same one. I notice above Mike H said he thought maybe there was a larger vortex in the center (without full condensation to the ground), with these smaller vortices dancing around the outside. This is the same thought I had at the time, and may be true, as they reported the damage path to be ~ ½ mile wide. We also ran into road problems about this time and had to go south than east. Just SW of Shambaugh we stopped and watched what I thought was a scud bomb, but it ended up putting out a nice funnel with rotation!

[Broken External Image]:http://members.cox.net/ksilvey/coin_02.jpg

[Broken External Image]:http://members.cox.net/ksilvey/coin_03.jpg

[Broken External Image]:http://members.cox.net/ksilvey/coin_04.jpg

I have the whole thing on video, but it’s to about 20 MB and to large for me to host. I could send it to someone if they want it. We followed the storm to about Bedford and then headed home. We were treated to another fantastic light show on the way home as new storms were raging all around. Believe we passed Mike H sitting on the side of Hwy 2 between Shenandoah and Sidney taking photos of the lighting to the south. Maybe those are my head and tail lights in his new avatar! It was also good to see my original target verify, but only with a severe warned storm. Not bad for late August, can’t wait for October. Almost forgot, here is a picture of a local who was stopped in the middle of a highway intersection! I took this after he moved so I could get by! This was not a chaser!

[Broken External Image]:http://members.cox.net/ksilvey/coin_10.jpg
 
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