The most intense wind you experimented in 2008 Season

[Donald Giuliano]

I'd say the strongest winds we encountered this year had to be intense inflow into one of the Ellis, KS, storms on May 23 (we were probably 5 miles east of the updraft base of the northern storm at twilight as it tracked toward Ellis). Strong easterlies were roaring into the storm, picking up sand/small pebbles from the road and giving my legs a good sandblasting, with the winds increasing as the storm made its closest approach to our position. When the winds strengthened to the point that it nearly blew off my glasses and I could no longer hold the tripod steady, I decided it was time to retreat to the car.

So holding my glasses onto my head with one hand, I folded up the tripod and turned towards the car. However, as I did so I nearly dropped the tripod and grabbed at it with my other hand, whereupon the wind immediately took my glasses and sent them flying--causing a major panic on my part as I'm not much good without glasses and my spares were at home! Fortunately, the driver of the vehicle came to my aid and were able to locate them in the grass near the side of the road, so I put them back on, gripped them tightly and went back to the car with the tripod in hand.

When I got to the car, I opened the door to put my stuff in, but with the wind raging was unable to keep the door from flying open while holding the tripod with the same hand. I instinctively let go of my glasses and grabbed the car door to prevent it from getting damaged, which resulted in my glasses instantly taking flight again and sailing down the road as I panicked once more. I waved the driver out to help and thankfully he was able to quickly find my glasses again, but after that I decided I wasn't leaving the vehicle in high winds any more that day. Shortly thereafter my wife and I went to Wal-Mart to get a couple of those little straps that keep your glasses from flying off when playing sports, in the hopes of preventing a recurrence. Definitely learned a couple lessons that day!

 

[Michael O'Keeffe]

Oh man those are scary words. Do you mean you were under the wall of my picture?(that pic is taken just south of I 70 near Collyer). If it's so I'm surprised you are still alive Michael it could be nice to see the video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JevrtxDvE9M

Here is the video from inside the tornado as well as what went down before.

 

[George Kourounis]

Here's a video clip which contains our encounter with the Collyer storm. We were on the east/west dirt road, just north of the interstate and we ended up between the edge of the collar cloud and the funnel. The wind was so strong that the vans were rocking, a lot of our stuff got sucked out of the front seat and it took 2 people to pull Charles Edwards into the van, and he's a big guy!

I don't know what the wind speed got up to. I was on the lee side of the van to try and get out of the worst of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ige9smfD6aM

George Kourounis
www.stormchaser.ca

 

[Brian Stertz]

Well this year it was near Villisica IA on a tremendous outflow surge on June 4....occurred just before the Nodaway IA tornado cycle. I am guessing 75mph on low side.

As a chaser...

In a car I would say it was the RFD with the Sitka tornado back in 1999....blew me and 3 other cars way off the highway...on foot without a doubt the F3 experience near Edgar NE (9/22/01) takes the prize. It was really something hard to describe other than terror on the triple point !!

 

[Derek Weston]

I don't know how fast they were, but it would have to be May 22 near WaKeeney, KS. We had been parked just south of I-70 watching the approaching storm, with a lot of precip and CGs. We never saw any of the tornadoes that were reported with this storm....I counted about five or so....because we were apparently in a perfect position for not viewing tornadoes with this storm. Eventually the intense rain core south of us began to get too close....I suggested "we need to go east on the interstate."

After a few more minutes and 'suggestions' from me, we finally started to move east on I-70. As we did, precip began to fly in from our southeast, being rapidly wrapped around the circulation that was producing a tornado just behind us. Chad was fighting the wheel as we were flying around 80mph to get ahead of whatever was in that rain (I guessed at the time it was a tornado wrapped in rain just behind us). I'd say the peak winds that hit us were around 70-80mph....fast enough that I knew something bad was being fed by them. A check of reports the next day would reveal we had been on the heels of a tornado that did damage in WaKeeney.

So after missing about five tornadoes right in front of us due to precip, we were nearly in another one, due to lolly-gagging

That is *exactly* my experience as well with that storm. Sitting at the subway right off of 70 and Wakeeney when I learned of the storm... no radar turned on, figured it'd come towards us... and it did. Freaked out thinking we were possibly going to be hit on the interstate.

Besides those winds, I also had the pleasure of being caught by the giant bow-echo at a strong point in Southern Iowa on the way back from Kansas on the June 5th chase. Damned near 80mph or quite possibly over. Seemed stronger than Wakeeney... apparently there was an area of rotation embedded in the area and possibly reports of touchdowns.... large limbs and whatnot down near our area. Our car was shaking and rocking a bit...it was hard to press forward. Another halfway scary experience as we didn't see it coming. (again, radarless at the time)

Other experience was with 60ish mph winds from a nasty storm in eastern Iowa. I've gotten a nice dose of action this year...

 

[Peter Wharton]

As a note, the first Quinter tornado that approached I-70 from the south before dissipating before crossing I-70 was rated EF-4. The Monster to the north of Quinter was the one that was rated EF-2.

Here's a link to the map of tornados that affected I-70 on May 23.
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/Image/gld/WXEvents/052308/trackf4.png
The EF4 was the first one of the day

We've had a lot of debate on our tour about which tornado was which - if you look at the radar images on this site as well, you'll see that the EF-4 is supposedly the later tornado at ~ 6:15, whereas the EF-2 was the earlier one at about ~ 4:30 - I have a pic taken after the 1st tornado which was taken on the muddy roads north of Quinter, and it's time stamped at 4:59.

Can anyone else clarify which tornado was which?

Here's the link for the radar images - http://www.crh.noaa.gov/crnews/display_story.php?wfo=gld&storyid=14861&source=0

Mr perception is that the track of the EF-4 more closely matches our experience driving up Castle Rock road and it paralleling us, but various videos I've sighted appear to show that the stronger cone-shaped tornado that crossed I-70 was the later tornado.

As Chris says, the 1st tornado dissipated before it crossed I-70.

 

[Laura Duchesne]

May 26 between Greensburg and Pratt, KS

We were driving up a dirt road after watching an area of slight rotation and possible wall cloud trying to gather but it seemed to have weakened and not do much... so we continued on. Jack pointed out a funnel cloud basically above us. He wanted to get us out of the way because power lines were to our left, but before we could move, a circulation of lots of dirt and tumbleweeds came right at us. It all hit the windshield, went calm for half a second and then the winds switched direction so fast. I remember looking out the side window and watching a solid wall of dirt fly right by. I instantly knew this was not normal and yelled "Winds changed direction! Winds changed direction!". It then stopped and I was trying to come to my senses to figure out what just hit us, then my sister who was sitting in the back yelled "It's behind us guys!" Apparently the tornado carried on into the field before dissipating.

We had a film crew behind us. They were following us for a few days because they wanted to get lightning footage. I think they got more than what they bargained for. They felt their car move and the one guy asked the other "Are you moving the car?". "No". Winds are estimated to be low EF 1. It chipped and sandblasted the windshield.

Not an ideal situation, but surprises happen.

 

[Adam Lucio]

Right now its a toss up between the inflow we felt outside of Ellis, KS on May 23rd and the RFD winds along I-57 as I filmed the tornado crossing it on 6-7

My anemometer was busted on May 23rd, another chaser who had a meso-net like station on his roof stopped by us, I asked for a wind measurement but he just walked away. I myself estimated around 60. Either way it was the most intense INFLOW Ive ever felt.

I had repaired the anemometer for the I-57 incident...yet I hopped outa my van so fast to capture the tornado that I forgot to reset the max speed indicator...it read 76mph when I got back in but I don't know if that was the RFD or from me driving down the expressway before hand.

 

[Michael Towers]

We've had a lot of debate on our tour about which tornado was which - if you look at the radar images on this site as well, you'll see that the EF-4 is supposedly the later tornado at ~ 6:15, whereas the EF-2 was the earlier one at about ~ 4:30 - I have a pic taken after the 1st tornado which was taken on the muddy roads north of Quinter, and it's time stamped at 4:59.

Can anyone else clarify which tornado was which?

Here's the link for the radar images - http://www.crh.noaa.gov/crnews/display_story.php?wfo=gld&storyid=14861&source=0

Mr perception is that the track of the EF-4 more closely matches our experience driving up Castle Rock road and it paralleling us, but various videos I've sighted appear to show that the stronger cone-shaped tornado that crossed I-70 was the later tornado.

As Chris says, the 1st tornado dissipated before it crossed I-70.

I was on Quinter #2 for over 12 minutes (viewing from the eastbound shoulder of I-70) and both the path and time represented by NWS Goodland are consistent with my experience and my video. I lost my data connection sometime during the event, when I got around to checking data after driving to the Quinter exit and making a few phone calls I noticed the last GR3 download capturing the event at approx. 6:21:




Compare with the two scans on the GLD page at 6:17:



and 6:26 respectively:




Here’s an edited version of my video, starting about 1.5 minutes after I first saw the tornado to my SE. When it became apparent it was heading directly at me I moved east (total distance about 2/3 mile). The tornado ultimately weakened but then re-intensified, crossing the interstate as an elephant trunk (very near if not over the location where I initially saw it). The tornado reached max size (and visually also apparent max intensity) about 3 minutes 45 seconds from initial sighting or at about 1 min. 41 sec. into the edited YouTube version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmFk3IsRb4c


Regarding most intense winds, mine occurred later that evening just south of Ellis. As Adam Lucio, Andrea Griffa and Donald Giuliano noted, these were not outflow but inflow winds. Andrea, I believe your group was to my south; your vans had passed me earlier and if I remember correctly you had started making your way back north and were parked within sight still to my south. Donald, I can relate, I had one heck of a time keeping my balance let alone try to keep a steady camera!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4A1sdls6UE

 

[Andrea Griffa]

We've had a lot of debate on our tour about which tornado was which - if you look at the radar images on this site as well, you'll see that the EF-4 is supposedly the later tornado at ~ 6:15, whereas the EF-2 was the earlier one at about ~ 4:30 - I have a pic taken after the 1st tornado which was taken on the muddy roads north of Quinter, and it's time stamped at 4:59.

Can anyone else clarify which tornado was which?

Here's the link for the radar images - http://www.crh.noaa.gov/crnews/display_story.php?wfo=gld&storyid=14861&source=0

Mr perception is that the track of the EF-4 more closely matches our experience driving up Castle Rock road and it paralleling us, but various videos I've sighted appear to show that the stronger cone-shaped tornado that crossed I-70 was the later tornado.

As Chris says, the 1st tornado dissipated before it crossed I-70.

We had a debate as well because both tornadoes had the appearence of a violent tornado. Actually when I observed these two tornadoes the last wedge(the EF4) before getting a cone shaped tornado near the interstate, showed some large debris thrown in the sky(I suppose some trees).
Anyway if the map is correct the first wedge was the Quinter EF2. It dissipated 1 km south of the interstate. However a weak tornadic circulation was always at the ground:even when the wall cloud crossed the I70. After (I think less of) 1 km another tornado was at the ground North of the I 70 and it got bigger till became a very photogenic large cone tornado(the first tornado of Doug Kiesling video). After few minutes another wide tornado touched the ground and become a large wedge tornado and it headed northward.
After these tornadoes another large meso came toward the interstate and you could see the another large tornado at the ground: the EF4.

 

[Andrea Griffa]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JevrtxDvE9M

Here is the video from inside the tornado as well as what went down before.

Thanks Michael, very nice video.