May 22 Hill City Supercell

[John Wetter]

I'm quite positive that first one never did anything. I was up close to it, then backed off for the awesome structure and repositioned for the tornado everybody saw.

My Pictures

-John

 

[Andrea Griffa]

I too saw a pretty well defined funnel on the original northern Meso, though I'm pretty sure what I saw never reached the ground.

This video grab is of the quickly dissapering funnel, it reached further down then this, it just caught me off guard as I still had the camcorder in the bag and it began to lift before I could get the vid camera out. I saw it extend about 1/2 down though I never saw any ground circulation.

That same storm kept trying to organize again this is shortly after that funnel


This shows the original Meso on the right and the new storm quickly gaining stength to the South.


Here is the confirmed tornado and debris cloud, the one that everybody and their dog saw.

Yes Dustin, this is the tornado(or funnel) I was speaking before. I saw the same funnel, probably not too far from S.Pieter but I can't confirm because I was making confusion with cities name. And I'm pretty sure it came from the original meso, before the formation of the meso that produced the tornado we all saw. One other thing: this tornado/funnel was dropped more than 15 minutes before the confirmed tornado.

 

[Shane Adams]

The funnel everyone is talking about happened well before the St Peter tornado that we all saw. The pics I'm seeing are of the original wall cloud/funnel/cycle from the first storm....not the storm that produced the tube we all saw.

The other tornado I'm talking about was from the same storm as the famous tornado, not long before. From the descriptions I've heard, it was fully condensed to the ground, and occurred southwest of the tornado everyone saw. The pics I've been seeing posted in here are not only not the tornado I'm speaking of, but that's not even the same storm.

FWIW, Chad Lawson and I had zoomed in, tripoded video going throughout that funnel event and we never saw any indication of a tornado. Of course if anyone can prove me wrong I'd be thrilled

 

[Paul Knightley]

We saw what appeared to be a funnel on the northern cell (whilst the southern cell which subsequently produced the "main" tornado was still forming) - we were south of the interstate, and east of Gove...it was north of the interstate.

The link below has some pics of the wall cloud but the funnel had gone by the time we stopped.

http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~paulkn/usa%202007/may22.htm

 

[Bill Doms]

I'll need to go back in and check the time stamp but this "feature" is on the north cell about the time the south cell had it's most impressive structure. T

This was not a funnel at any point as it is actually the the tail cloud viewed from the south/southeast. The following image is a video extract.

 

[Andrea Griffa]

The funnel everyone is talking about happened well before the St Peter tornado that we all saw. The pics I'm seeing are of the original wall cloud/funnel/cycle from the first storm....not the storm that produced the tube we all saw.

The other tornado I'm talking about was from the same storm as the famous tornado, not long before. From the descriptions I've heard, it was fully condensed to the ground, and occurred southwest of the tornado everyone saw. The pics I've been seeing posted in here are not only not the tornado I'm speaking of, but that's not even the same storm.

FWIW, Chad Lawson and I had zoomed in, tripoded video going throughout that funnel event and we never saw any indication of a tornado. Of course if anyone can prove me wrong I'd be thrilled

Yes Shane that's the point. I know the tornado you're talking about.It formed at about 7 pm in a location situated South West of the famous tornado. On may 22 at about 6.55-7-05 I saw under the meso the rotating wall cloud with a black cone shape at the base, I had a doubt that it could be a tornado but because of the precipitation I couldn't see the probable tornado. Now after doing a contrast of the image it's very probable that it was a quite large cone with probable debris at the ground and with nearly to ground condensation.
Sorry for the bad quality of the pic but this is all that I can do with ps.

 

[Eric Flescher]

I am glad you all posted pics and more about this event

Apparently there were at least two tornado/ funnels.
What has been most confusing on this thread is when
(1) chasers are saying "tornado" when it was only a "funnel"
(2) the cone funnel is called a "tornado" when we did not see it touch the ground
(3) when some people call either one a "tornado/funnel " which is it?
(4) when the two are called tornadoes eventhough one or both looked like funnels eventhough it was possibly rainwrapped on the bottom (but still called a tornado)
(5) I saw one video of the St. Peters one (I think that is the one) where a "very thin rope" like extension came down from the funnel for a couple of seconds)

(A) anyone have a little map of where they saw these two?
(B) how many chasers have called either one a definite "tornado"?

glad this thread has come up but I am still confused by the different parts of the thread, pics, accounts, etc.

It's getting better now and possibly we will understand the full scope soon



:::

The funnel everyone is talking about happened well before the St Peter tornado that we all saw. The pics I'm seeing are of the original wall cloud/funnel/cycle from the first storm....not the storm that produced the tube we all saw.

The other tornado I'm talking about was from the same storm as the famous tornado, not long before. From the descriptions I've heard, it was fully condensed to the ground, and occurred southwest of the tornado everyone saw. The pics I've been seeing posted in here are not only not the tornado I'm speaking of, but that's not even the same storm.

FWIW, Chad Lawson and I had zoomed in, tripoded video going throughout that funnel event and we never saw any indication of a tornado. Of course if anyone can prove me wrong I'd be thrilled

 

[Andrea Griffa]

Apparently there were at least two tornado/ funnels.
What has been most confusing on this thread is when
(1) chasers are saying "tornado" when it was only a "funnel"
(2) the cone funnel is called a "tornado" when we did not see it touch the ground
(3) when some people call either one a "tornado/funnel " which is it?


:::

If you are referring to me, don't worry I know the difference that is between funnel and tornado. I wrote tornado/funnel because I was not sure if was a tornado or funnel.
At this point I'm pretty sure about this:

-the first meso dropped down a funnel that could have reached the ground but so far no one was quite close to confirm.(Verne says that he didn't see any touch down depending on what he saw).
http://www.mnwxchaser.com/070522/DSC00029.jpg

-the second meso produced the famous tornado at about 7.20. Before we had a brief touchdown at 7.13.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y231/Prairiestormwx/may22first.jpg

and another larger probable rainwrapped tornado at 7.02pm.

http://digilander.libero.it/andreblu81/IMG_2601.JPG

http://digilander.libero.it/andreblu81/IMG_2604.JPG

 

[Dustin Wilcox]

The first storm never produced a tornado, the second more structured storm only produced one tornado from my close vantage point. That tornado may have touched down lifted a little and then touch down again though I consider that as there only being the one weak tornado.

Unless there was a tornado in there (I seen no evidence of one) THe bottom two pics are of the only tornado I saw the storm ever produce

I really don't think there was a tornado in there at this point

THESE TWO ARE THE SAME TORNADO IT TOUCHED DOWN THEN CONTINUED NE CHANGING SHAPE AND LOOSING GROUND CIRCULATION

MY VOTE: 1 TORNADO

 

[Jerry Funfsinn]

I too remember seeing what appeared to be a large rain wrapped tornado. I tried to get closer to see if it indeed was what it appeared to be.

You make the call......VIDEO. This was filmed between 6:55 and 6:58pm as the video states.
This radar grab shows my exact position (Roaming Gnome icon) in relation to the storm at the time.



Jerry Funfsinn
CREATIVE JETSTREAM

 

[Charles Kuster]

According to NCDC this supercell produced two tornadoes. One was on the ground between 6:48pm-6:54pm CDT. It had a path length of 2 miles and a width of 20 yards and was 10 miles WSW of Hill City. The second tornado that everyone saw was on the ground from 7:10pm-7:16pm. Its path length was 2.5 miles and its width was 50 yards and was 8 miles SW of Hill City (source: http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/orders/C99EBA53-74CB-29E7-AA62-165183D32503.PDF pg. 97. I don't think this link will work since it is a PDF that I think you have to pay for).

I have a similar picture as Andrew does from slightly closer. Unfortunately I was not close enough to tell for sure if it was a tornado and I don't remember exactly when I took the pic. However, if Andrew is right about that pic being taken 15-20 min. before the famous tornado then it would almost match with the NCDC report. I would say that this awesome supercell produced two tornadoes.

I'm fairly certain I had a distant view of the first touchdown. It's actually what got my attention and decided we should end the structure shots and go in close for tornado time.

The contrast was so bad, that I actually took that picture to see what was going on underneath. I couldn't see it with the naked eye, so I zoomed in and snapped a shot with the camera to get a better view. When I saw that, we packed it in. This was probably 15-20 minutes before the other tornado that everyone else saw.

 

[Eric Flescher]

Thanks for that info. The one Bill Hark took a picture of and some of you (aka: the famous tornado) I only saw as a funnel. I've been trying to get more information since that day whether there were no tornadoes, 1 (or possibly 2).
All along this pic from Hark (looks like the one I have) did not look like a tornado but looked like a funnel. I never thought about calling it a tornado although if it was rain wrapped as some people saw then who calls it a tornado?

Later we were close to another one that was coming down and looked like it was coming down as we approached it when it disappeared. Which one was that?

still looking for answers here .
Anyone have a map where these torn/ funnels were ? When most keep talking about the times but not location- there is some missing info. I would figure people with GPS could have pinpointed the locations

Anyway we saw the funnel or is it tornado (the famous tornado ?) and I photographed it.
The other might have been a tornado somewhere along the line but never really came down as we saw. I will have to find my notes or video.

Times are okay too but I would like others to corraborate the locations.

:

If you are referring to me, don't worry I know the difference that is between funnel and tornado. I wrote tornado/funnel because I was not sure if was a tornado or funnel.
At this point I'm pretty sure about this:

-the first meso dropped down a funnel that could have reached the ground but so far no one was quite close to confirm.(Verne says that he didn't see any touch down depending on what he saw).
http://www.mnwxchaser.com/070522/DSC00029.jpg

-the second meso produced the famous tornado at about 7.20. Before we had a brief touchdown at 7.13.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y231/Prairiestormwx/may22first.jpg

and another larger probable rainwrapped tornado at 7.02pm.

http://digilander.libero.it/andreblu81/IMG_2601.JPG

http://digilander.libero.it/andreblu81/IMG_2604.JPG

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

Eric, if you're still confused as to whether or not that tornado that everyone saw actually touched down, you might actually try looking at the photos and videos that have been posted in this thread. I'm not sure why it's such a mystery.

Several photos in this thread show a debris cloud under the funnel, and the video that I posted shows the condensation connect with the ground at the very beginning.

I'll go through my video later tonite if I have time to find the exact time frame of the above photo that I posted.

 

[Brett Roberts]

FWIW, I also observed a small debris cloud shortly after the infamous cone developed NW of WaKeeney. After less than a minute, we lost sight of it and were unable to see it again for the remainder of the funnel's duration, whether due to terrain or actual lack of contact with the ground. I can see why some chasers may not have seen the debris cloud, because it was apparently so brief (and may not have been visible unless you were within a couple miles), and therefore question whether it was a tornado - but I think enough firsthand accounts have been given to hopefully put this issue to rest.

 

[Eric Flescher]

I looked at the video several times

Thanks for the feedback. I looked a tmy video several times and I still could not see if there was debris cloud .
This is one of the reasons I've been wondering while many say it was a tornado.
I will look more closely at the thread photos too (again).
I guess I will call it a tornado.

**

Eric, if you're still confused as to whether or not that tornado that everyone saw actually touched down, you might actually try looking at the photos and videos that have been posted in this thread. I'm not sure why it's such a mystery.

Several photos in this thread show a debris cloud under the funnel, and the video that I posted shows the condensation connect with the ground at the very beginning.

I'll go through my video later tonite if I have time to find the exact time frame of the above photo that I posted.