June 17, 2009 Aurora Nebraska Tornadoes
In Marysville, Kansas we could see a storm near Columbus, Nebraska that had an overshooting top, we decided to go after it since It looked good. We still had no data. Arriving in Beatrice we got data back and realized that it was going down hill, but we figured we could see some good structure. Kept going and we get just south of North Bend, Nebraska and see a really high based base with no rotation or lowering. we sat around and thought about going home. The Grand Island storm looked really good on radar, so I called Derrick and he said it was trying hard to put a tornado down and at the end of our conversation I heard him yell condensation! tornado on the ground! and he said he had to go. I really wanted to get onto that storm, but it was 95 miles away. Eventually we agreed that this storm wasn't going to do anything and that our best option was to head west and maybe get lucky or at the very worse get a lightning op. It was now 7:45pm. We left Prague, Nebraska hoping to intercept the storm at Aurora, Nebraska. Once I get data back, the storm is hooking and looking really good, now we are about 20 minutes away.
Starting to get excited as we enter the precip. Once we can see the base the structure looks almost more amazing than the storm we just saw!! Once we get to the north side of town we see a brief touchdown (tornado one) that lasted a few seconds maybe more, so we pull over. Chris is freaking out that we need gas and we can't stay long, but I think we were fine. We go through town and can't see the storm, once we get on the other side of town (we didn't get gas yet) I look over and there is a tornado on the ground (tornado two). No condensation yet, but a lot of ground circulation. we bust to the shoulder and pull over, and setup for some images.
how could the day get better? the thing stays on the ground for 18 minutes! and we are in perfect position to capture the tornado with the structure, here again would have been incredible with a timelapsed video of the inflow and HUGE beavers tail.
Had to get lightning with the tornado. Started to get dusty all the way up to the base. This was pretty scary now with the sirens blasting in town and emergency vehicles were gathering to the south of town. A tornado emergency was announced over the radio. It was about 6 miles from us at this time I believe. Then it starts to clear up a little at the top and you can see a funnel again.
It's headed straight at us at about 20 mph I think. The tornado moved ENE however. Forms a recognizable cone, I'm still using the 10-20mm on all of the previous images.
Now I run back and get my 18-55mm lens to get the cone tornado up close. Beautiful. I under estimated the distance we were from the tornado, while there I thought we were about 2 miles at the closest, but apparently we were 3 miles at the very closest, when it became a wedge.
Around this time I called Derrick to see where they were and they had been about 300 yards from the initial tornado that we had seen on the north side of town. We he answered he said "Please tell me you saw that!" Oh we saw it!
Later dust got lifted back into it and the condensation became hidden again. Now it was growing pretty good. Some said it was a wedge at one point, but from our vantage point I'd call it a large tornado.
Large Tornado!
Images after this show it falling apart, At its widest (1/4 mile) it was rated an F2. Crazy story, my friend Anna Tyler's dad was on the train that got derailed when the tornado was at its strongest and widest. Luckily he's okay, but talk about crazy coincidence. For a while it looked like it would hit the town which would have been bad bad bad. But God didn't let it happen, which is great.
We moved south and got gas at the station just before the interstate, this time it went smoothly! we got out of there pretty quick and hoped on i80. Took the first or second exit, I can't remember. Got setup for some twilight lightning ops.
This was just unbelievable. This is totally unedited, I just changed the white balance through RAW conversion. Awesome colors here thanks to the headlights, lightning and natural twilight going on.
Here it goes again trying to produce, at least a lowering there, maybe a funnel, it was too hard to tell cause it was too dark to identify rotation. I really wanted to stay and see it do it again in the fields on the other side of town, but it just didn't get it done.
Got back on the interstate and took another exit for more lightning, but with the updraft this time too.
I really am still overwhelmed with everything I saw this day. Definitely got my best images of storms, no doubt about it. My first tornado... yeah God was good to me on this day.
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