As it got darker, the colors shifted.
Instead, there were many storms growing and dying in rapid succession, but it was still a great photography day, with wildflowers, storm structure, mammatus and a wonderful sunset.
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I separated from the group, hoping to escape the rain, and stopped on the bridge to check out the circulation. Whoa! A huge cone on the ground!
Incredibly, the storms not only went up there, but one tornado-producing storm there barely moved all day. At one point we just set up and watched it spin out one funnel after another.
But the main show was the large tornado, which we all filmed from different angles. I watched it from the highway bridge over the river, filming the tornado as it churned beyond the wagon bridge that had always captivated my imagination in spite of its sometimes gloomy history. Unfortunately, the twister reportedly caused injuries.
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Here’s a look at Storm No. 2 near Viola, Kansas, with its hail core lit by the sun.
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Beams of light and spinning structure in Colorado, along with inflow.
What a beauty! Photos (c) Chris Kridler
We targeted the upslope of eastern Colorado and were rewarded with photogenic storms. The double rainbow over the wheat field was particularly rapturous.
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Such a pretty shelf cloud, if not the most organized thing.
The storm moved north of La Junta but did not seem intent on producing a tornado, despite a report about this time (2 p.m. mountain time). It developed the telltale “greenage” color that usually indicates hail. We ended up with scenes of desolate beauty.
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Beautiful striations formed in the shelf cloud.
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A lovely shelf cloud.
While I got some beautiful lightning and enjoyed the chase, the trip “home” to the hotel ended in disaster when I hit a deer in the Middle of Nowhere, Nebraska. It’s a long story, but after the nightmare of dealing with AAA (who eventually lost my car – yeah, I found it again), the police and the crazy scene, I got to a hotel in the wee hours with the help of friends (special thanks to Dan Shaw and Greg Ansel), and my car went into a shop the next day in North Platte. After we found it. Seriously, it’s a long story.
To top things off, I had a horrible cold and spent the weekend worried my car would be totaled. It wasn’t, but it had to be held hostage for repairs. A rental car got me back on the road.
That said, the pictures are nice. Roll over each image to see the caption, or click on one to see a slide show with larger photos.
The group was happy after seeing a tornado in open country – the best kind.
I chased with Mark Robinson, Jaclyn Whittal, Michel Millaire, Matt Grinter and Brad and Dayna Rousseau. We targeted the Lubbock area and ended up moving a little east to intercept a small line of storms. The southern one surprised us by producing a classic tornado despite a relatively weak storm that was nothing special on radar.
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I followed storms east in the Oklahoma Panhandle to be treated to a great rainbow and mammatus. This is “The Rainbow and I,” with my shadow.
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The hail core on this storm was beautifully green.
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