Quinter area tornados

[Eric Treece]

When I saw the NWS report about this it really confused me too. Our chase group sat at the little airport in Quinter on the north side of I-70 and video taped the tornado almost coming directly at us (Quinter #1).......it has a rather rapid demise and a new meso formed as it was dying out quickly. We watched the meso and felt it was coming to close to our location so we bugged out and got on the south side of I-70 at the gas station near the Dairy Queen. Enroute I noticed the DOW NE of the airport scanning, so they should definitely have the real deal about what happened. By the time I got situated and watching the new meso it LOOKED to have a stovepipe........I could see definite circulation, but I could not confirm if this was a 2nd tornado or not as it was behind alot of ground clutter......trees and the town itself.

A couple clips of the video I shot are here.......

http://coloradostormchaser.com/video.htm

 

[Chris Hayes]

Eric, in Quinter Kansas tornado #1 part 2, we're the ones who were parked in that big red Dodge truck. About time I saw a video with us in it, considering how many chasers were there. lol.

 

[Eric Treece]

Donald, where were you when you shot the tornado as it was occluding? That was Quinter#1 correct? That one seemed to look a little different than the one we saw, especially the occlusion. The first tornado we saw occluded really quickly and the new meso formed almost immediately.........you can clearly see it forming as #1 dies in my video at the very end. It is funny how crazy this event has become in regards to actually what really happened with all of the chasers and documentation that was done on it. Now I am thoroughly confused.

 

[Eric Treece]

Chris, I remember seeing you guys there............what did you do as/after the wedge died out? Did you hold position? Or relocate? What happened to the new meso that formed on it's flank? Donalds video really has me confused because his video has a somewhat lighter background which is making me wonder if it is the 2nd big tornado that happened a couple hours later?? Plus I don't see the new meso that formed after Tornado #1 occluded.

 

[Chris Hayes]

Chris, I remember seeing you guys there............what did you do as/after the wedge died out? Did you hold position? Or relocate? What happened to the new meso that formed on it's flank? Donalds video really has me confused because his video has a somewhat lighter background which is making me wonder if it is the 2nd big tornado that happened a couple hours later?? Plus I don't see the new meso that formed after Tornado #1 occluded.

Eric, we held our position and watched as the wall cloud passed in front of us. We then watched as the other tornado formed on the other side of the highway. Afterwards, I tried to figure out a way for us to get back to the storm in time to follow it, but because the next exit was so far down, I broke off the storm and dashed south to storms south of there. I was really watching that ominious lowering as you can see in my video (need to learn how to post videos to youtube). I really wish I would have known that 2nd wedge was going to approach Quinter, I would have just stayed there. Eric, would it be possible for you to get some vidcaptures of us/the truck, and the tornado in the background? Thats just too cool to pass up!

 

[Donald Giuliano]

Donald, where were you when you shot the tornado as it was occluding? That was Quinter#1 correct? That one seemed to look a little different than the one we saw, especially the occlusion. The first tornado we saw occluded really quickly and the new meso formed almost immediately.........you can clearly see it forming as #1 dies in my video at the very end. It is funny how crazy this event has become in regards to actually what really happened with all of the chasers and documentation that was done on it. Now I am thoroughly confused.

Eric,

Sorry to confuse you, the video switches from Quinter #1 (around 4:30-5:00 pm) to Quinter #2 (around 6:30 pm) around 01:35 in the video without really noting it. I didn't get a clear view of Quinter #1 occluding because it became shrouded by rain from my point of view as we had trouble keeping up with it after it touched down.

 

[Eric Treece]

Heck yeah, I can do that Chris. Might be a couple days but I will PM you when I get a chance to actually get it done.

Tornado #1 - 4:29 - 4:32 Occluded South of I-70.
Tornado #2 - 4:34- Don't know? fighting with camcorder focus, but when I got it in focus there was CLEARLY a stovepipe funnel. Could not tell if it was in contact with the ground from my location and lsot visual of it as it headed north behind the town of Quinter.
Tornado #3 - 6:16-6:26 When we first saw this one it was what appeared to us to be nearly a mile wide, then it shrank to maybe 1/4-1/2 mile wide. We first saw it between Collyer and Quinter and gave up on it after it went behind all of the traffic ahead of us stopped on I-70. We then turned around to position for the Ellis storms.

 

[Chris Hayes]

Thanks, Eric. No rush on doing that. Just be awesome to have pictures of that bigass tornado coming towards us

 

[Eric Treece]

Ok, thanks Donald. Yeah, I was wondering about how long your video was too because Tornado #1 didn't seem to last very long, but in the video I have, I am shooting the tornado and can't even see it with my eyes. It wasn't until Chris' truck pulls up that I look into the view finder to see it dead center and it basically on his shoulder. If I would have zoomed in it would have looked like he had a pet tornado like a parrot. I pulled forward instead to full zoom in on the tornado. I was watching it inline with the fence posts on the other side of the highway, and it is even more evident in Chris' video that it was holding a bearing and coming straight at us. But seeing Chris' 2nd video post, that doesn't look like the giant wedge tornado we filmed between 6:16 and 6:26..........would that be a NEW tornado? #4?

 

[Bryan Putnam]

^ Eric, I think its the same tornado, the EF-4. I watched it travel all the way to I-70 and it shrunk in size by the time it got there.

 

[Marc Remillard]

I was there too... My video will come soon