UK Storm Chasing - Tornado Alley (08-5-2004)

May 8th 2004 Click on any of the the Photos to Enlarge
The data today points to east Nebraska, so we say goodbye to the days Inn at Nebraska City and Tom says farewell to his foxy lady and we head north.
We come across a Walmart in Freemount, handy for provisions and we can park on the east side up against the shop and shelter the car from the heat of the day. The wait begins, and time when you are doing nothing drags on, you start to get itchy feet wondering if you should be moving north.
We watch some clouds grow quickly upwards, but each time they got some height to them they they broke down. I went back into the shop to get a bottle of drink, while I was standing at the counter Pete rushes in to get me.
In the time I had been in the shop the whole system had changed, we set up tripods and started to film lightning. As the storm rolled towards us we heard a buzzing noise coming from vans aerial.
Martin was the first to notice rotation in the cloud that was to our west, nothing came of it but it just proved to us we where in the right spot. Outflow wind hit us and small hail started to drop so we got into the van to move a little further away and maybe find shelter for the van.
Just as we started to move the tornado Siren went off, pete looked back and could see the whole car park behind us getting cover by a sheet of hail and dust.
We must have driven 2 -3 miles down the road and noticed a church with a shelter at the front, we pulled the van under there and parked up. During the next hour 2 - 3 sells came over, with each one came high winds, drving rain and lightning. At one point we had a strike that could have been no further than a 1/4 of a mile from us and the clap of thunder seemed rubbled for ever.
Map of route (103 miles, total 517)