David Drummond is very fine, here's the thread

I will add to that debate that while the paved road east was our option (and a great one until the trees came down), every road to the south in the vicinity was mud. North obviously was directly into the hail core and back west of us we had already seen two tornadoes. Paved road to the east, at least in THIS situation was the only option.

I am gonna probably get killed for saying this, but I can honestly say, after that experience I will never leave my vehicle for a ditch. As bad as it was with half on nebraska coming in my vehicle at 100+ mph (god forbid had there been a structure nearby! :shock: ) I am sure it would have been much worse on body tissues outside the vehicle. Had it been worse the vehicle would have been my death. Outside of it most certainly would have been, at least in THIS situation.
 
are you certain this was a tornado and not a gustnado associated with the rfd.
 
are you certain this was a tornado and not a gustnado associated with the rfd.
Click to expand...

Since David said in his other posts (did you read them?) that a new meso formed I would only assume that this would be a tornado. The fact that he has 19 years experience I think it would be a safe bet that he knows what the hell he is looking at. And then there is the fact that he saw the tornado once he got away from it.

Graham Butler,wx5svr
[email protected]
 
First of all, I am glad that the both of you made it out ok.

Second of all, I really do not think that anybody who was not there has the right to second guess what you did.
 
Second of all, I really do not think that anybody who was not there has the right to second guess what you did.
Click to expand...

I certainly agree that no one should second guess their actions. I think 9 out of 10 of us would have reacted the same way and drove the heck out of there.

I think the constructive debate here (and really it isn't a debate, per se) is taking the time now that this is post mortem to discuss situational awareness. We HAVE to keep our head on a swivel out there and keep two steps ahead in knowing what our escape options are.

Myself, I'm more content to hold back a bit further than I use to be. Some folks want to be closer to the action and that's fine to a degree. Their SA must be keener, however, than those of us who prefer to hold back a bit. Reading Dave's posts it sounds as though he had a pretty good grip on where he could go and where he couldn't .

Was the outcome good? Nah, but under the circumstances it was the lesser of evils and certainly could have been worse. And anyone who was chasing last Saturday knows, those storms, despite their relatively slow movement, were quite impressive as far as rapid, structural changes went.
I don't think it is unrealistic to assume that any experience chaser could have been caught under rapid mesocyclo/tornadogenesis under those conditions.

Dave and Mel, glad you guys made it through ok. And I hope ya'll did get a few bucks from it. If it had been me, I certainly would need the money to buy some new underwear. :)

Regards,

Mike
 
are you certain this was a tornado and not a gustnado associated with the rfd.
Click to expand...

The RFD spinups last Saturday were certainly numerous, but most of the ones I saw were very short lived and on the order of about 10-50 feet in width.

Regards,

Mike
 
Definitly life on the edge, I think this video will help the general public to see the need for training before chasing. And remind us chasers that we don't know it all, I never want to be where you all were. I can push it sometimes. Thanks for reminding me to hold back and be cautious. THANKS TO YOU ALL FOR THINKING OF OTHERS AND THANKS TO GOD FOR THINKING OF YOU!!
 
Correlating David's locations to WSR-88D data

David,

I have access to the Level-II 8-bit data here at NSSL and can view using WDSSII (a sophisticated 4D radar display that can cut cross-sections, etc). Can you provide me, to the best of your knowledge, the exact time (UTC) and location (nearest county road intersection) of the event that overtook your vehicle. If this was the storm west of the Thayer storm, it may have been pretty close to the Hastings radar (KUEX - Blue Hill NE) at the time and there is some pretty dramatic structure seen in the radar data, including a rapid LL mesocyclogenesis.


Greg Stumpf
 
Greg this would have been the storm west of the one that hit Hallam. We were in Clay County on hwy 74 about halfway between Ayr and Fairfield, NE. This was around the 7:30-7:35 pm cdt if my camera time stamp is correct. If I am not mistaken that is darn near right on top of that radar site is it not? I would love to see some radar images of that, I have not as of yet.
 
Re: Correlating David's locations to WSR-88D data

David,

I have access to the Level-II 8-bit data here at NSSL and can view using WDSSII (a sophisticated 4D radar display that can cut cross-sections, etc). Can you provide me, to the best of your knowledge, the exact time (UTC) and location (nearest county road intersection) of the event that overtook your vehicle. If this was the storm west of the Thayer storm, it may have been pretty close to the Hastings radar (KUEX - Blue Hill NE) at the time and there is some pretty dramatic structure seen in the radar data, including a rapid LL mesocyclogenesis.


Greg Stumpf
Click to expand...

Wow I'd love to get my hands on radar data.. :)
 
David,

The KUEX radar is Right on U.S. 281 about 0.75 mile south of the center of the town of Blue Hill (based on the lat-lon coordinates I have), so you were anywhere from 10-15 miles northeast of the radar. I really need a pretty precise location within a mile or two - perhaps from your GPS or chase log, of the county road intersections with Hwy 74. If you don't have logs, perhaps you could review the video again and estimate your location within a mile based on observable landmarks.


greg



Greg this would have been the storm west of the one that hit Hallam. We were in Clay County on hwy 74 about halfway between Ayr and Fairfield, NE. This was around the 7:30-7:35 pm cdt if my camera time stamp is correct. If I am not mistaken that is darn near right on top of that radar site is it not? I would love to see some radar images of that, I have not as of yet.
Click to expand...
 
OK Greg, I did some time checks on my camera. I looked at the current time on my camera and compared it with the official US time and time.gov and it is 4 min and 28 seconds fast. That means we pulled up at the firetruck at 7:29:06 when that first hit us. The 107.8 mph max wind recorded on the wx station was at 7:29:09.

AND! I think I found you a landmark. I can see in the video we crossed over a railroad track just a few feet before the fire truck. I can see this on Delorme Street Atlas about 1 -2 miles west of Fairfield just east of Road 34/74 intersection. All of the video seen thus far also is not all of it, we encountered something similar just about a half mile prior to this to the west as well although not ANYWHERE near as intense. If I can provide anything else let me know.

David,

The KUEX radar is Right on U.S. 281 about 0.75 mile south of the center of the town of Blue Hill (based on the lat-lon coordinates I have), so you were anywhere from 10-15 miles northeast of the radar. I really need a pretty precise location within a mile or two - perhaps from your GPS or chase log, of the county road intersections with Hwy 74. If you don't have logs, perhaps you could review the video again and estimate your location within a mile based on observable landmarks.


greg
Click to expand...
 
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