|
May 25th 2006
Click on any of the the Photos to Enlarge
|
Well
what a day, we had driven west in the hopes of maybe something tonight
or early the next day so we could still have time to get back
to Oklahoma, ready for our flight the next day. |
We
had nearly arrived at Woodward, the outside temperature sensor in the vehicle
was reading 105F (40C) when a cell started to explode from
nothing, to something that was 45,000 feet within an hour. we turned
right and started to follow. It was looking good for about another hour then split and started to fall apart,
one part of it tried to pulse, but failed miserably.
We
then started to chase a second cell that had been coming up from the Texas,
but we where at least 60 miles away from it and dusk was approaching.
|
 |
| We
figured that hopefully we could catch it up and get some more lightning
shots. The cell was moving NE and we had only one road option to take. By
Buffalo, we could see the core and some nice lightning coming out of it
as we edged right in, our first thought was that we could see smoke in
the dark, we then realized there was a tube coming up from it
and it was in fact a tornado (sorry about the quality of the
picture, but these where captured from a video camera which was filming
at 21:57), and quickly as it came, it dispersed and went.
For a video clip Click here (2M)
|
 |
 |
We
continued to keep on the edge of the cell, and set up twice to
photograph the lighting. While
shotting in these I started in warm inflow of 30-40 mph, ending with cold
outflow. It might seem strange but there is something about standing on
the edge of a storm when it is doing that, maybe some people get the same thrill laying on a beach soaking up the sun.
Finally after going to 3 motels we got a
room in Dodge City at 2:30am in the morning. Here's a few of the photos. |
 |
 |
 |
Map of route (584 miles, total 7160)
|