John Erwin
EF5
**rescued post**
Dick McGowan
Location: Olathe Kansas
Posted: Fri Sep 15, 2006 10:47 pm
Darin Brunin and I were on 3 seperate tornado warned cells in Nebraska (The Gibbon storm, Seward Co., and the Hallam scare). We watched a storm from birth to the cell that tracked near Gibbon and further northeast. We were able to keep up with the cell up until SW of Columbus where a tornado was reported. I'll post a full report with pictures later. Great chase, beautiful structure, and hopefully tomorrow will be even better.
Scott, Dick and I were on the Gibbon storm and are about 95% sure there was no tornado with it at that point in its life.
Dan, I hope that your grandma gets everything back in order soon.
Here are some photos
**photos did not make it into cache**
Scott Olson
Moderator
Location: Brookings, South Dakota
Posted: Sat Sep 16, 2006 12:36 am
Left for Broken Bow early this morning. Chased the intial cells, however it took some time to get in position since cells were firing further south and consolidating. Got in position and chased several supercells, including the Suprise supercell. I was unable to view the tornado since another cell had merged with it. However, Pete McConnell and I were some of the first in Suprise, Nebraska. There was some strong damage in Suprise (likely F2) and the width extended most of the city. Some of the damage witnessed: many tree's snapped, metal siding in road, completely collapsed and twisted metal silo, snapped tornado siren, roof damage to brick building and most substanial was complete destruction of a mobile home. The whole area was just a gigantic mess and the metal frames had been substanially twisted. Radar showed another severe storm and after warning some of the folks, we quickly headed out. We went about 3 SE when we decided to pull off and the let the core push through. Then we reliazed the house we stopped near had also been hit by the tornado, with the garage partially collapsed and out-building damage. We then witnessed a possible cone tornado NW of Ulysees, at least it appeared to be.
It's not suprising that tornadoes occured today, given the wind fields (with 0-1km SRH nearing 200 m2/s2 by 0z indicated by the models this morning.) Though the amount of convection/merging likely mitigated the threat somewhat as storms were constantly encountering rain-cooled air.
Given our attempt to get to the Gibbon mesocyclone, it appeared that it would have been pretty difficult to photograph that tornado. Since, convection formed around that cell.
Dan Christianson
Location: Omaha NE
Posted: Sat Sep 16, 2006 12:52 am
Was late to the chase but got to Suprise NE, definetly ominous looking clouds, at one point what i was seeing had to be a tornado i could see what looked like a debri cloud, and well when i got into suprise the damage, showed , the heavy rain quckly obscured my view so i had to pull off the roadside and let the storm pass, i was getting blasted by heavy rain and wind, my grandma's roof got torn off her house, numerous grain bins just twisted and crunched up, she said she heard a loud roar and minutes later she got out and saw things destroyed, i also heard some gas line's got broken... i saw what may looked like a F-1 weak tornado but lightning illuminated what almost looked like a stovepipe or larger i cant really say much as the rain obscured my view... id love to hear from other's on this chase or cell..
EDIT: just took a look around my grandma's place, 4 large cottonwood tree's down, power poles laying across the road, and heavy damage to the metal shed, roof is bent over and twisted, roof is torn off my grandma's place, im thinking gas lines werent broken now, just some propane tanks leaking.. smells like rotten egg's.. will wait for daylight to see the real damage....
Mike Hollingshead
Location: Blair, Nebraska
Posted: Sat Sep 16, 2006 8:16 am
I'll post a better account later, but for now I'll put these up(have to get ready for the day today).
This was near/east of David City looking west. To the left side of the image in the cut is "something". It would have had to be the south of highway 92, near or just north of Suprisie at this point. There is a wall cloud north of it in very much the same fashion as the wall cloud was on the Hanover storm during its tornado(back in April). Judging from the couple other stills around this time I'm not thinking that that is a large tornado, but perhaps just the way the rain was at that time. It is in the perfect location however with the strong rfd cut right there. These storms were a pain today as they always had new development just south of them and were being directed largely into their own precip as it was. One area would wrap up as a new seemingly seperate updraft would start to do the same thing to the south of it. They did this from the time I was on them near Holdredge. But anyway it is interesting Surprise was evidently a tornado, or at least reported as such on the news(surely there's been no nws survey there yet?). All I know is that isn't far from there at that point, but a new storm was forming just south of this one and may very well have been the one to cause that damage. This one was tornado warned at this time though, and had been for a few minutes. The inflow to this storm was rather incredible at this time. As you'd get a little closer to it they would be screaming from the east, probably sustained above 30 mph with gusts up to 50.
Just a cg infront of the rfd cut. The full sized image is kind of cool as that leader to the left is almost in those trees(yeah I'm sure it is either ahead or behind them in actuality).
This shows the rfd cut a little better. You can see the long, cold, tail cloud coming south in the rain. If you look to the very far left side ahead of the cut you can see a bit of a new lowering. That would be the next area to wrap up and go around, though not the seperate storm to the south. This was the first time of the day I saw anything like this going on. When I do the real account on the site I'll try and show the day stuff and how it was behaving.
Shelf entering Omaha, or just scraping the north side of the city. I was very hungry after having only had one rice crispy bar all day, but this photo op was getting to me, so I had to go with it. I was in Elkhorn when I found the shelf and thought, I bet this looks cool lit up by Omaha a bit.
http://www.extremeinstability.com/stormpics/2006/06-9-15-7904.jpg
On the way to Burger King I thought, hey I bet there is a photo op of this over the Omaha skyline. Thanks to Bob Matzen for the heads up on the 911 memorial lights! I turned into Harras Casino in Council Bluffs to shoot this and found I would be stuck there for a while. As soon as I get off the exit ramp police are directing traffic as something just finished showing there. I was like, well crap, I'm not leaving here if I wanted to(crazy long line of cars). But anyway, this was fun to shoot with the stormy sky(something to keep in mind for those chasing around here today....if it still lit up tonight). I've got several but didn't get the bolt with it I was hoping for. There was a brief chance with probably 3 or 4 very close bolts evidently coming out of the anvil of the storm moving ne from Lincoln. I jumped back in the car after the first one as it was a big surprise and could not force myself to get back out and shoot. The view from the car was not as clean as walking over to the River.
Earlier I was in and just east of Kearney as that storm got the tornado warning. I saw what looked like a hook on xm and was like, no that can't be and didn't think it was since no tornado warning was coming out. Then it finally came out as the storm was really organizing and becoming quite round. I believe this one had one tornado report and I'm not sure I buy it. It was very very shelfy to the north where it would have been. It is possible one of the others forming at that time did produce though. I couldn't see a whole lot a bit after Kearney as I was in pouring rain for about the next 2 hours. I did encounter what must have been about 2 inch hail on my way ne up highway 30. I started to squint my eyes as a couple sounded like they were going to break the glass. There weren't that many stones in this but several were fairly big. Oooops, never once thought of my poor radiator while driving in that. This is much longer than I had in mind. Time to end this.
_________________
Mike Hollingshead
ExtremeInstability.com
Dick McGowan
Location: Olathe Kansas
Posted: Fri Sep 15, 2006 10:47 pm
Darin Brunin and I were on 3 seperate tornado warned cells in Nebraska (The Gibbon storm, Seward Co., and the Hallam scare). We watched a storm from birth to the cell that tracked near Gibbon and further northeast. We were able to keep up with the cell up until SW of Columbus where a tornado was reported. I'll post a full report with pictures later. Great chase, beautiful structure, and hopefully tomorrow will be even better.
Scott, Dick and I were on the Gibbon storm and are about 95% sure there was no tornado with it at that point in its life.
Dan, I hope that your grandma gets everything back in order soon.
Here are some photos
**photos did not make it into cache**
Scott Olson
Moderator
Location: Brookings, South Dakota
Posted: Sat Sep 16, 2006 12:36 am
Left for Broken Bow early this morning. Chased the intial cells, however it took some time to get in position since cells were firing further south and consolidating. Got in position and chased several supercells, including the Suprise supercell. I was unable to view the tornado since another cell had merged with it. However, Pete McConnell and I were some of the first in Suprise, Nebraska. There was some strong damage in Suprise (likely F2) and the width extended most of the city. Some of the damage witnessed: many tree's snapped, metal siding in road, completely collapsed and twisted metal silo, snapped tornado siren, roof damage to brick building and most substanial was complete destruction of a mobile home. The whole area was just a gigantic mess and the metal frames had been substanially twisted. Radar showed another severe storm and after warning some of the folks, we quickly headed out. We went about 3 SE when we decided to pull off and the let the core push through. Then we reliazed the house we stopped near had also been hit by the tornado, with the garage partially collapsed and out-building damage. We then witnessed a possible cone tornado NW of Ulysees, at least it appeared to be.
It's not suprising that tornadoes occured today, given the wind fields (with 0-1km SRH nearing 200 m2/s2 by 0z indicated by the models this morning.) Though the amount of convection/merging likely mitigated the threat somewhat as storms were constantly encountering rain-cooled air.
Given our attempt to get to the Gibbon mesocyclone, it appeared that it would have been pretty difficult to photograph that tornado. Since, convection formed around that cell.
Dan Christianson
Location: Omaha NE
Posted: Sat Sep 16, 2006 12:52 am
Was late to the chase but got to Suprise NE, definetly ominous looking clouds, at one point what i was seeing had to be a tornado i could see what looked like a debri cloud, and well when i got into suprise the damage, showed , the heavy rain quckly obscured my view so i had to pull off the roadside and let the storm pass, i was getting blasted by heavy rain and wind, my grandma's roof got torn off her house, numerous grain bins just twisted and crunched up, she said she heard a loud roar and minutes later she got out and saw things destroyed, i also heard some gas line's got broken... i saw what may looked like a F-1 weak tornado but lightning illuminated what almost looked like a stovepipe or larger i cant really say much as the rain obscured my view... id love to hear from other's on this chase or cell..
EDIT: just took a look around my grandma's place, 4 large cottonwood tree's down, power poles laying across the road, and heavy damage to the metal shed, roof is bent over and twisted, roof is torn off my grandma's place, im thinking gas lines werent broken now, just some propane tanks leaking.. smells like rotten egg's.. will wait for daylight to see the real damage....
Mike Hollingshead
Location: Blair, Nebraska
Posted: Sat Sep 16, 2006 8:16 am
I'll post a better account later, but for now I'll put these up(have to get ready for the day today).
This was near/east of David City looking west. To the left side of the image in the cut is "something". It would have had to be the south of highway 92, near or just north of Suprisie at this point. There is a wall cloud north of it in very much the same fashion as the wall cloud was on the Hanover storm during its tornado(back in April). Judging from the couple other stills around this time I'm not thinking that that is a large tornado, but perhaps just the way the rain was at that time. It is in the perfect location however with the strong rfd cut right there. These storms were a pain today as they always had new development just south of them and were being directed largely into their own precip as it was. One area would wrap up as a new seemingly seperate updraft would start to do the same thing to the south of it. They did this from the time I was on them near Holdredge. But anyway it is interesting Surprise was evidently a tornado, or at least reported as such on the news(surely there's been no nws survey there yet?). All I know is that isn't far from there at that point, but a new storm was forming just south of this one and may very well have been the one to cause that damage. This one was tornado warned at this time though, and had been for a few minutes. The inflow to this storm was rather incredible at this time. As you'd get a little closer to it they would be screaming from the east, probably sustained above 30 mph with gusts up to 50.
Just a cg infront of the rfd cut. The full sized image is kind of cool as that leader to the left is almost in those trees(yeah I'm sure it is either ahead or behind them in actuality).
This shows the rfd cut a little better. You can see the long, cold, tail cloud coming south in the rain. If you look to the very far left side ahead of the cut you can see a bit of a new lowering. That would be the next area to wrap up and go around, though not the seperate storm to the south. This was the first time of the day I saw anything like this going on. When I do the real account on the site I'll try and show the day stuff and how it was behaving.
Shelf entering Omaha, or just scraping the north side of the city. I was very hungry after having only had one rice crispy bar all day, but this photo op was getting to me, so I had to go with it. I was in Elkhorn when I found the shelf and thought, I bet this looks cool lit up by Omaha a bit.
http://www.extremeinstability.com/stormpics/2006/06-9-15-7904.jpg
On the way to Burger King I thought, hey I bet there is a photo op of this over the Omaha skyline. Thanks to Bob Matzen for the heads up on the 911 memorial lights! I turned into Harras Casino in Council Bluffs to shoot this and found I would be stuck there for a while. As soon as I get off the exit ramp police are directing traffic as something just finished showing there. I was like, well crap, I'm not leaving here if I wanted to(crazy long line of cars). But anyway, this was fun to shoot with the stormy sky(something to keep in mind for those chasing around here today....if it still lit up tonight). I've got several but didn't get the bolt with it I was hoping for. There was a brief chance with probably 3 or 4 very close bolts evidently coming out of the anvil of the storm moving ne from Lincoln. I jumped back in the car after the first one as it was a big surprise and could not force myself to get back out and shoot. The view from the car was not as clean as walking over to the River.
Earlier I was in and just east of Kearney as that storm got the tornado warning. I saw what looked like a hook on xm and was like, no that can't be and didn't think it was since no tornado warning was coming out. Then it finally came out as the storm was really organizing and becoming quite round. I believe this one had one tornado report and I'm not sure I buy it. It was very very shelfy to the north where it would have been. It is possible one of the others forming at that time did produce though. I couldn't see a whole lot a bit after Kearney as I was in pouring rain for about the next 2 hours. I did encounter what must have been about 2 inch hail on my way ne up highway 30. I started to squint my eyes as a couple sounded like they were going to break the glass. There weren't that many stones in this but several were fairly big. Oooops, never once thought of my poor radiator while driving in that. This is much longer than I had in mind. Time to end this.
_________________
Mike Hollingshead
ExtremeInstability.com
