Feeling a bit sick ...

[Mike Peregrine]

I happened to check the metadata on this image I took on Saturday:

This was taken in the core of the Picher storm at exactly 5:38 pm.

I checked it against the reports, and if I'm reading the UTC time correctly, I took it at precisely the moment the tornado was reported in Ottawa county. Is this right?

It just seems completely surreal and paradoxical to have this kind of beauty and peace on one side of a storm; meanwhile a few miles south, lives are being altered forever.

Edit - just for point of reference:

 

[Damon Scott Hynes]

Not to sound flippant, but that tornado would have happened whether you were taking pictures or not. I don't get too happy, nor do I get too frustrated anymore when out on a chase, because of things like this.

My first successful chase back in 1999, the tornado I taped wrecked a farmstead and another one that day killed someone. Which is why I don't get into detail as to what a storm is rated, how much damage, etc.

 

[Chris Bowman]

Mike,
I can empathize with you. For me though its usually watching the storm on radar, knowing the destructive potential/capability. When its really bad I just get a knot in my gut and hope people are able to get out the way. It is surreal for me to see such a thing of beauty on the radar knowing that people's lives are being altered.

 

[Ben Prusia]

Wow Mike, we all must have been looking at the same thing. Seems like I was chasing a rainbow for miles along US-166. The picture I have attached shows the same thing you must be looking at. This was taken at or around 5:39PM about 4 miles W of the US-69/US-166 intersection (about 5 miles NW of Picher). I am now in awe that right behind that rainbow and the such was a destructive tornado...

 

[Mike Peregrine]

Yeah, Ben - you and I were neck and neck most of the chase. I think you were right behind me by just a few miles. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have gone back to check the video to find the tornado near Hallowell. Your angle on that compared to mine makes me think that you were probably closer to Oswego than I was at that point. I was more south of that tornado than west.

The rainbow persisted for a really long time. Seemed like it just kept getting brighter and brighter. It's amazing how much the air cleared out just behind these storms. It went from murky grunge to crystal clear, gorgeous conditions (albeit windy as heck). I took this photo on the way home that night just to illustrate how perfect the atmosphere was after the dryline went through ... the color of blue at twilight was really beautiful:

 

[Jim Saueressig]

You made me take a look at my rainbow picture from that general time frame that day of a rainbow ending at a calvary monument at a local cemetery.

That was taken at 5:44 pm about 85 miles from Picher. The picture taken time was 5:47 pm but I looked at my cameras time and it was ahead 3 minutes. So I am guessing this was awful close to when the tornado was exiting the Picher area. Seems kind of strange.

 

[Andrew Stoller]

Storm chasing is for sure a parodox, at least for me. USA plains supercell storms...an absolutely magestic phenomenon. In my eyes, one of the most amazing things mother nature produces. Something I just have to witness.

Yet, they are one of the most devastating natural occurrences mother nature produces - at least on a micro scale.

It does give me "peace" if you will, that storm chasers in general help victims and forecasters so much. I'd venture a guess that many lives are saved because chasing has become so popular and there simply are more numbers of people roaming around the USA, witnessing severe weather.

It's some saving grace that settles my guilt, if you will, for getting so excited about severe weather - when others suffer from it.