The funnel was behind us to our SSW by about a mile. According to Jeff Snyder's report, the funnel surprised him too and fortunately, he was able to make his way to safety. After I spotted the tornado/funnel, it lifted and gradually disappeared from my view (although I don't have the best nightvision) as we all came to a stop at an intersection. I made the mistake of both assuming that since the funnel was no longer visible that the tornado had lifted and that the since the storm motion was NE that it would pass to our east (we were due north of where I last saw it). Yes, you can criticize me for those mistakes but I was not trying to get close to any tornado at that hour. If the others in the group wish to out themselves and discuss further, I'm sure they can elaborate more.
Doug,
I'm not 100% positive, but I assume I was one of the vehicles in the mini-convoy that tried to you referred to in your REPORTS post. Does the following look right (from my GPS log) -->
http://www.tornadocentral.com/now/05292008_tornado.png ?
As with Doug, we were certainly not looking for the "money shot" -- it was dark enough that video would be nearly worthless (though I do have video of the funnel while we were N of it), and we weren't "relying" on data since we had no data coverage in that area! This tornado occurred well back into the occlusion area, and the funnel looked to come back out from the rear side of the updraft; the primary meso appeared to be farther N (at least 5 mi, closer to Jewell), and the RFD gust front was well east of this area. Like Doug, we were looking to stair-step N and E to keep pace with the main meso. The Gazeteer we were using showed that the E option was likely paved, so that's what we tried. Somewhere along the way, we ended up behind several mobile mesonet vehicles (part of the TWISTEX group, I presume). We made it not more than 1/4 mile down the east road before it was evident that the road would be quite muddy and very risky to traverse in my car. So, we turned around to head back W in hopes of heading S back to Hwy 9 / 24. It was at this time that we noticed an elephant trunk-like funnel to our immediate S, with an occassional ground circulation evident. Noting the danger, we turned back to the south, and we appeared to be glanced by the western edge of the circulation (rapid shift from strong easterly winds to southerly winds as it appeared to pass from the S to E to N to NW of us; 40-45 mph winds max for us). In fact, I've seen chasers intentionally get this close, FWIW. The center of rotation appeared to be just E of us in the field, and we quickly bolted back S to Hwy 14 and eventually to Hwy 9 to get east of Beloit. This was certainly unintended, caused not by an over-reliance on data nor by a desire to get a "money shot". In fact, nobody in our vehicle was running their camcorder when we had this close encounter -- instead, we were all worried about getting to safety. This circulation appeared, again, well behind the RFD gust front in an old occlusion. I'm glad to hear Doug and company are largely okay, and we would have stopped to help if we knew there was damage (we were the southern-most vehicle at this time, since we were trying to make a bee-line back to the highway and away from the funnel).
I think the primary meso was up near Jewell and NW of Randall, or 5-6 miles N of us, at the time this occurred, so we weren't exactly trying to get into "the cage". Correspondingly, the primary hook echo precipitation (i.e. "wrap-around" precip) was to our N and NNE, IIRC. All of this is to say that the tornado experienced was NOT in any of the "usual" hot-spots, and I'm still confused as to exactly what circulation this was (main meso 5-6 mi N I think, with possible new meso the E... where did this tornado come from?). I'm interested in seeing what the TWISTEX / mobile mesonet vehicles recorded in terms of peak wind speeds.
A good lesson to always keep eyes open and looking in all directions (including up!) when near a supercell!
