Mystery tornado video

[Thomas Loades]

There was a fairly long sequence of a tornado on a program I used to have on tape (got taped over several years ago :evil: ) and owing to the program's irritating habit of not stating locations, dates, or even interviewees, I never found out where it came from — I suspect the program was hacked up and redubbed (with Australian voiceover) bits of different programs. It was on TV about 1998, so bear with me:

Anyway, it began with a group of either chasers or a TV crew pulling under an overpass on a fairly busy highway (near a town?) during a storm because there was a wall cloud not far away. They got out and taped it, and as they did so a tornado formed from it. They were watching it moving away from them, I think, when another tornado appeared behind them, and started moving right at them. While that was happening, it flipped a car around, although I don't think it was a car visible on the tape (at least it didn't look very convincing — I remember that). All of a sudden, there were a lot of other people around — people pulling over either because of this second tornado, or watching the first one — and the chasers/TV crew got them in the ditch by the road side as the tornado passed right across the other side of the road from them; the wind was quite audible. I guess it kept going, out of visibility, or dissipated very quickly after that because that seemed to be where the sequence ended.

Does this ring a bell with anyone?

 

[Jeremy Lemanski]

i know what video you are talking about, i think, i can picture it in my head right now. I think it was on an episode of storm stories on TWC.

It kinda sounds like the program you were watching put pieces of the kansas overpass video in it as well, coming from the way you told the story, part of it sounds like the kansas video while the rest remindes me of the other one.

 

[Blake Naftel]

Your description sounds like a package KSTP-TV 5 in Minneapolis/St. Paul released to TWC following a close-encounter with the Jacksonville/Springfield, IL tornado of 19-April-1996. The stations meteorologist, photographer, and a two chasers (Mike & Fran Pike from MN) were driving westbound on US36/I72 west of Springfield; pulled over to the underpass; and shot video of the tornado as it approached their location; passing nearly overhead and to the north of their location by apx. 500 yards. This video was also featured in TWC's "Tornado Chase '96" program; and since then has probably been sliced and diced within the wonderful world of post-production.

That's my best guess at the source.

..Blake..

 

[Verne Carlson]

The description of the car flipping around makes me think it was the famous 'Underpass' video from outside of Andover, KS on I-35. It was a TV news crew that filmed it as it overtook them and they fled to the 'girders' with the father and his two daughters. Is that the one you are thinking of?

 

[Robin Tanamachi]

I concur with Blake Naftel said; the video you're describing sounds very much like a KSTP video I saw when I lived in Minnesota. KSTP TV meteorologist Dave Dahl yelled at all the people who pulled over to get down in the ditch and not to look at the tornado. Sound familiar?

 

[Andy Wehrle]

I'm inclined to agree that this was the KSTP video of the April 19, 1996 tornado. That video didn't show a car being flipped, but it did show considerable debris flying around in the tornadic circulation just across the highway. Maybe what you saw could even have been a hodgepodge of clips from both the Kansas Turnpike '91 video and the KSTP video.

 

[Shane Adams]

Your description sounds like a package KSTP-TV 5 in Minneapolis/St. Paul released to TWC following a close-encounter with the Jacksonville/Springfield, IL tornado of 19-April-1996. The stations meteorologist, photographer, and a two chasers (Mike & Fran Pike from MN) were driving westbound on US36/I72 west of Springfield; pulled over to the underpass; and shot video of the tornado as it approached their location; passing nearly overhead and to the north of their location by apx. 500 yards. This video was also featured in TWC's "Tornado Chase '96" program; and since then has probably been sliced and diced within the wonderful world of post-production.

That's my best guess at the source.

..Blake..

It's no guess - Blake is right. He just beat me to the punch.

 

[Thomas Loades]

Slight posting accident — disregard

 

[Thomas Loades]

Yeah, the 4/19/1996 one — that's it. The names sound familiar from another program I saw the sequence in (about the same time ago), though that didn't say where it was either.

As for the "car" getting flipped, it was someone audibly saying on the tape that a car was hit as the tornado was crossing the road, and on the tape you saw a dark object being lofted up into the circulation — actually airborne by some distance, rather than being spun around the base of the funnel as in the 4/26/1991 KS turnpike video. It didn't look very convincing as a car; it just seemed to be too light. More like a part of a shed, or a fence, or something. Also, it seemed suspect that if the tornado could throw a car around in the air, it would probably be an F3 or more, and wouldn't have left all the people in the ditch completely unscathed.

Thanks for that, guys.