Those "Other" Tornadoes

[Adam Lucio]

I sometimes have a knack for missing the "main" tornado show of an outbreak day and getting a lesser known tornado. Those end up being some of my favorite though and I like having a more unique prize to call my own.

I will use May 19th 2013 as a recent example. While the large tornadoes near Shawnee stole the show for most, I got up close and personal with this nice drillbit and had it mostly to myself. It's some of my favorite video to go back and watch.

Anyone else have any similar stories? It would be nice to see those other tornadoes we don't often hear about.

 

[JustinPhillips]

For me its May 27, 2012. The main show was a moderate risk in Nebraska where 4 of the 5 tornadoes for the day happened. There was a slight risk closer to home for the warm front in northwest Wisconsin and tornado numbers on the mid day mesoanlaysis were very high. The worry was the strong EML but luckily the target area was right on the edge of it. After watching towers fall to the cap on the triple point to my west in Minnesota, a tower to my east finally exploded on the Wis/Minn border on the edge of that strong EML. I went after it and quickly became a beautiful tornadic supercell producing this EF0 tornado near Siren, Wisconsin. While not an outbreak day, Id still say it was a "other tornado". Its also very special to me because no one else was on it hardly, it was only an hour from home, and it was my first big score since I started chasing full time in 2011. To this day it stands as the best tornado and structure I have seen in my home state and right up there with some of the stuff I have seen in Minnesota since then.

 

[Marcus Diaz]

Well I listed the best case of this in this thread that I experienced. While the masses were up in South Dakota, I was just a couple hours from home. But I did have another good day where the secondary target scored me some tornadoes. On May 11 last year, while everyone was up in central Nebraska, the gf and I chased southern Kansas. We hooked onto the first storm in Perryton, TX before letting it go near Greensburg. We then bailed north on a tornado warned storm approaching Kinsley. It dropped a small tornado near Kinsley and another small on near Lewis. We then bailed back west to another storm nearing Kinsley and saw another brief tornado NE of town. They're all documented in this video (pardon my voice as I was getting over bronchitis during this chase).

Watch video >

Rest of those photos from that day can be seen here.


Another instance was back on May 18, 2010 in the TX Panhandle. Everyone and their grandma was on that storm near Dumas and Stinnett. But on that day, we decided to bail on that storm before it dropped a tornado outside of Stinnett. We went back west, towards New Mexico, for a supercell that was taking shape near sunset. We bolted northwest of Dalhart for what is still the most classic, textbook looking supercell structure I've ever seen.

We stayed with the storm as it neared Stratford and witnessed twin tornadoes at night.

That was a very fun exciting chase. The rest of those pics can be seen here.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Interesting topic, especially since I racked my brain and even went back through my chase logs to discover I've never really had a bona-fide Great Plains secondary target score. All of the tornadoes I've seen in the Plains were either from the "storm of the day" or as part of an outbreak where there were multiple good "primary" storms, with a large number of chasers on each one. Maybe the closest one I could call a secondary target storm was the May 29, 2004 central Oklahoma supercell in which I saw tornadoes at Calumet and Concho, one of which was anticyclonic:



Though on this one, I was far from being alone - especially since this was an OKC metro-affecting storm. Though most non-OKC chasers, it seemed, were either on the Concordia or Conway Springs storms.

 

[Steve Miller]

My most recent "other tornado" is the Bray, OK EF1 that occurred at the same time the Moore tornado was on the ground on 5/20/13. This is the first tornado that I have ever driven away from on purpose. My wife was sheltering in the freezer at Moore Medical Center and I had to get back up north.

Attempting to get the "other" tornado is actually my primary mission these days. Not as much traffic and secondary targets are more challenging.

 

[Skip Talbot]

While many folks were on the Langley storm and the EF4 it produced on 4/14/2012, we were chasing the southern storm and had front row seats to the formation of this tornado, an EF0 near Moundridge, KS. It made the day for us on what was otherwise a frustrating high risk chase that featured many difficult to catch tornadoes.

 

[Jason Boggs]

Mine was the 5-9-2006 tornado that hit Childress, TX at night. Like Steve, I like going for the other tornado in the secondary target (usually down the dryline) for generally more isolated storms, less crowds, and more fulfilling reward if and when I do score.

 

[Shane Adams]

May 19, 2013 - Targeted the southern KS area, and got on the first storm of the day and subsequently, the first tornado of the day near Viola (not the elephant trunk, this was before)....

April 14, 2012 - Langley gets the nod as the tornado of the day for this event, but we got 8 "other tornadoes" in NW Oklahoma from two different storms....

May 31, 1999 - While most were in southwest KS on the Sitka tornado, we ended up in southwest OK, and scored a trio of tubes few others saw, including this one near Brinkman....

 

[Adam Reagan]

Two chases come to mind for me. The first was May 19, 2013 in South Central Kansas. I saw a brief tornado outside of Viola, KS that preceded the elephant trunk several chasers captured this day.

Like Skip I too saw the Moundridge, KS tornado on April 14, 2012.

 

[Adam R Davis]

Before jumping on the storm that would spawn the behemoth EF4 at Langley, KS on 04-14-2012, we decided to check out a rather unassuming supercell that put down a brief, but very picturesque tornado near Otis, KS.

 

[Sean Ramsey]

I was also on the South Haven tornado on May 19th, but another tornado comes to mind for me. It was March 18th, 2012 when I was northwest of Mangum and I caught this tornado, one of several from the day but I haven't seen this one in any other's reports from the event so I classify it as an "other" tornado:

The tornado below is the one I most commonly see from that day:

 

[Winston Wells]

My "other tornado" is the same as Shane and Adam Reagan - and also from May 19, 2013. Here's a shot of the very brief Viola, KS tornado that I took from KS-49 a few miles north of Conway Springs. The view is to the west:

The secondary tornado that I've always been interested in hearing more about was the Corning, KS EF-3 that occurred on 5/28/13 while most of us were getting in position near Bennington. Were any ST members on this storm? The few YouTube videos and stills that I've seen suggest that it was a monster and somewhat similar in structure to its much more famous sibling.

 

[Marcus Diaz]

Sean I caught that large tornado near Mangum on video. We were due south of the meso looking north and caught it briefly in an almost wedge phase buried in the rain.

 

[Sean Ramsey]

Sean I caught that large tornado near Mangum on video. We were due south of the meso looking north and caught it briefly in an almost wedge phase buried in the rain.

Awesome do you have it posted anywhere? Would be cool to watch. I was surprised at how large it got, and tried to chase it north on a dirt/muddy road and had to retreat back to a paved road. It dissipated after a short bit, then it looked like it reformed even larger although my photos at that point weren't very good so I couldn't tell if it was on the ground at that point.

 

[Marcus Diaz]

Here the full chase with my (over the top) editing. I had to mess with the contrast a lot to bring out the large almost wedge tornado in the rain. The meso structure was impressive and tight. We caught a satellite on the south side rotating around too.

Watch video >