May 10, 2004 Limon, CO DVD Highlights

[Verne Carlson]

[Broken External Image]:http://www.stormchaserco.com/20040510_TandL.jpg
This was one of the most incredible storms I have ever chased in 13 years and I was fortunate enough to have caught it all on tape. 7 Tornadoes from brief funnels to monster wedges on into the night. Available now on DVD, check it out at:

http://www.stormchaserco.com

 

[David Draun]

Wow! Seeing lightning with a tornado looks really cool. Normally when I see tornado video, there's not much if any lightning occuring near the tornado or in the meso itself. I thought this was due to the rain-free base. Why do some mesos produce lightining more often than others?

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

That is an interesting topic that has been brought up in the past on many lists. Maybe we should start one on that here. I caught an interesting event May 16 this year with an extremely electified HP. It was one constant roll as it approached. It produced a couple brief touchdowns and nearly instantly following this the lightning drops off to next to nothing. Then the main tornado is produced. Probably more what is going on with the updraft itself then the ground contact. One reason some tornadic events might seem this way is lightning loves to occur in the vualt region away from the base, or at least "east" of the base. 8-26 was a fine example of this in sw IA. Just looking at the video of the meso you'd think there was NO lightning going on. But if you were there you'd of noticed stroke after stroke many miles east of the updraft base from the "anvil". That storm was in a very high shear environment with the updraft having to be tilted way the hell over in the 100 knt upper jet. Anyway...... sweet capture here for sure.

 

[Charles Allison]

The Mulvane, KS storm on June 12 had an incredible amount of GC's during the 2nd tornado. At one point they were only 5 or 10 seconds between each one.[Broken External Image]:http://www.oklahomalightning.com/2004Chase/June12/3vc.jpg
[Broken External Image]:http://www.oklahomalightning.com/2004Chase/June12/1vc.jpg
[Broken External Image]:http://www.oklahomalightning.com/2004Chase/June12/2vc.jpg
[Broken External Image]:http://www.oklahomalightning.com/2004Chase/June12/StrikeFunnel.jpg
In this one you can see the funnel at the top right. It almost looked like the lightining traveled down the funnel.

 

[Tony Laubach]

Wow Charles! That last shot is incredible!!! :shock: :shock:

Originally posted by David Draun
More like HOLY S**T!!!

Actually, that was my first thought! :lol:

 

[David Draun]

Originally posted by Tony Laubach
Wow Charles! That last shot is incredible!!! :shock: :shock:

More like HOLY S**T!!!

Seriously, I would think the ligtning went right down through the tornado.

 

[Charles Allison]

Originally posted by David Draun+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(David Draun)</div>

<!--QuoteBegin-Tony Laubach

Wow Charles! That last shot is incredible!!! :shock: :shock:

More like HOLY S**T!!!

Seriously, I would think the ligtning went right down through the tornado.[/b]

There were probably 50-100 video cameras from every angle on that tornado and it would be interesting to see what it looked like from another vantage point. The one problem with it was it was a very quick flash and almost not visible in the video.

 

[Verne Carlson]

If you look at my original image at the top of the posting and Charles last pic you'll notice that these two lightning bolts that are closest to the tornados are 'blown apart' almost like an air discharge or ball lightning. I wonder if the windfields near the vortex cause the return stroke to 'explode' in this way? What'd ya think?

 

[Tony Laubach]

Actually Verne.. I took a close look at your still and thought that the bolt looked a bit like a running man who got tagged.. the arms and a leg.. kinda funny to see.. like the AOL dude got picked off!

I suppose the wind fields around the bolt could have something to do with the current.. but I'm not sure how that would work.. it could be the path the lightnig chose based upon dust particles or such the tornado may have had around it?

 

[Verne Carlson]

Hey Tony - you're right - he looks like he got zapped on the head while running away from the T!

 

[Shane Adams]

Originally posted by Charles Allison
There were probably 50-100 video cameras from every angle on that tornado and it would be interesting to see what it looked like from another vantage point. The one problem with it was it was a very quick flash and almost not visible in the video.

From the look of your pics, you had pretty much the same angle as I did. I've never seen CG activity more insane around a tornadic storm than this one; I'm deathly afraid of lightning unless_I'm_seeing_a_tornado, and then I'm normally too tranced to care......but on this day, I turned away from the first tornado to get my a$$ back inside the truck.

I accidentally captured an amazing lightning strike near the Rock, KS tornado later that day......on the still frame of my video I counted over 20 forks. I'm seriously considering this image for the cover of my DVD.

 

[Jeff Wear]

Here is what I believe is the same CG Charles got in the last picture.....as viewed from the southwest......




Like Charles said - these were quite difficult to pick out on video. Lots of quick cloud to ground and cloud to air strikes throughout the event - no multiple return strokes either so they all appeared as one quick flash instead of a flicker.

 

[Thomas Loades]

Originally posted by Verne Carlson
If you look at my original image at the top of the posting and Charles last pic you'll notice that these two lightning bolts that are closest to the tornados are 'blown apart' almost like an air discharge or ball lightning. I wonder if the windfields near the vortex cause the return stroke to 'explode' in this way? What'd ya think?

Apparently — though I have only read this in 1960s science books, so it may be exaggerated as 1960s science tends to be — the "path of lightining" (stepped leader?) can be pushed along by the wind, and you get a blurred shape in a time exposure photo. In the photos these books used, it shows an entire bolt "straying," in non-tornadic circumstances, but perhaps because the wind-field of a tornado isn't a vertically straight line, only part of the bolt would "stray" like that.

 

[Bobby Eddins]

Had the chance to watch Verne Carlson's DVD documenting this storm last night all I can say is what a storm. It was great to see it from different angles from what I witnessed. The video is steady and shows the evoloution of this storm very well. The view of both the thin rope near I 70 and the ultimate large tornado in the valley complete with ground action is both beautiful and incredible. You could teach a class just based on this storm.

Well worth getting!

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Wow, what a beautiful tornado towards the end! Verne covers the entire chase very well with nicely tripodded video of the whole evolution. I was a bit mesmerized by that late evening tornado. Just a very 'rain-free' tornado that rapidly grows into this beautiful stovepipe with this interesting lighting on it(beauty light that happens shortly after sunset). The music was nice too how it was inserted in the background. Interesting selection too. At first I was like, this is cool, what the heck is it....then I figured it out. Nice job, well worth the trade or purchase.