| May 22
2004 |
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Several tornadoes in Nebraska
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ANY VIDEO LINKS ARE CURRENTLY NOT WORKING, STAY TUNED!
This report and large
tornado are dedicated to my step-father George Jacobs, who lost his
battle with cancer this Saturday afternoon, while I was in Nebraska
waiting for storm development. He was a local chaser for KJRH Ch2 in
Tulsa, and loved every bit of it. This tornado was about 3 hrs after he
passed away, and I'm sure he was there with us.
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| Myself, Justin Teague, Matt Stroup and Charles Coullette set out to St
Joseph, Missouri on Friday, to get in better position for Saturday. We met up with
Steve Miller and Bob Hall at the Best Western Classic Inn on I-29 and
169 merge. Nice rooms, but I think Justin and I got the only room
with faulty high speed internet. Thanks for that. |
| Saturday morning, we did
our forecast and set our main target of Beatrice, Nebraska. Mainly for
the library with internet for data, but to the west of there, Red Cloud, NE was our target for initiation. We knew storms would likely go up
farther W, and probably to our N also, but we made an agreement to NOT
go after the early storms. We were in the absolutely best atjosphere,
and if we were patient, it should pay off around 7pm. Met a few
chasers at the very un-crowded Beatrice library; Mike Peregrine and his
crew (forgot names, sorry) and Neal Rasmussen and Sara Johnson. Also
visited with Daymon Haynes on the W side of Beatrice. |
| Sat in Beatrice for
nearly 5 hrs, hearing of tornado warnings all around us. |
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This entire chase is available on
our DVD |
| View
below is 2 miles NW of Hebron, from Hwy 81. Wall cloud has begun to
descend from base. |
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| Within
seconds, a funnel tries hard to touch down. NO contact at this point. |
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| Wall
cloud begins to form quickly. We could see the rapid rotation as it
develops. |
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| Brief
spin-up. Some chasers too far away report this as a large tornado NW of
Hebron, Ne. This lasted a whole 10 seconds, and every picture that
follows is Rear Flank Downdraft,(RFD) not tornado. |
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| Wall cloud really
spinning fast! Dust below wall cloud is RFD at this point, not a
tornado. It moves straight, not rotating. We watch carefully, no
rotation is evident on the ground. |
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Radar image below shows us as
the small white recangle, with the rotation directly to our W. This
matches perfectly with what we see visually. |
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| RFD
blast really comes in now, tears the wall cloud up a bit.
Video |
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| RFD,
not tornado. |
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| Large RFD blast! The wall cloud and
spin-ups are to the right, just off frame. Winds are slamming the
ground! |
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We continue east on county roads, (you can
see the quality of roads we are on...) After a few miles, we get a
strong spin- up. This was either a gustnado, or a satellite tornado of
the main rotation, which is off to the north of our view here. |
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The rotation dfinitely anchors, and
continues moving to the N. First the red dirt, then the darker dirt, and
looks like a tornado to us, but likely an RFD induced gustnado. CRAZY RFD everywhere today, strongest I have ever seen. Rotation is obvious in the Video |
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| Looking
N from Hwy 4, we are about two miles west of Daykin, NE. Cone tornado has formed. |
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| E of
Daykin now, tornado begins to get stronger. Video |
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| We turn
on county road something, and head N as the tornado begins to wedge out.
Weak really, this tornado at this point is rated by NWS as an F0 to F1.
Might look huge, but if it only hits dirt, it will be low rating. |
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| Road options and the rain wrapping in
ends the chase for us. Mud 4 inches deep on a few roads. To be expected
I guess. |
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