May 31, 2010 Campo, CO tornado

I experienced one of my most amazing storm chases ever on this Memorial Day!  I am free from the tours for a week, and I fly back home to California on Wednesday, June 2.  I had a few free days before the flight from OKC…so what do I do?  I chase storms for fun!  Today the fun and excitement was practically off the scale for about 20 intense minutes as a large tornado developed very near our location, just south of Campo, CO, in extreme southeast Colorado.

On the day prior I chased with Kirstie Johnson and Dallas Raines in north-central Oklahoma.  We were tagging along with Brian Morganti and the Tempest Tours group for much of the chase, which featured a lot of lowerings and blowing dust and some storm structure, but nothing close to a tornado.  Today we awoke in Enid, and targeted extreme SE CO.  The upper winds were weak, seemingly a little too weak around the 500 mb level to expect a top-notch supercell.  The forecast flow at 700 mb was not too shabby, maybe 20-25 knots from the SSW.  If we could get some southeasterlies at the surface, I figured that low-level shear could be sufficient for an interesting show.  Moisture and instability were quite good for this High Plains area, with dews near 60F.  Forecast charts for this area showed a good slug of precip by 00Z near the CO/KS/OK triple-point.  It appeared to be the obvious target area, and SPC agreed, as they circled the area with a slight risk.  Still, they weren’t too keen on tornado prospects, with just a 2 percent outline around Baca County in CO.

This was Dallas’ final chase day of his whirlwind 4-day chase weekend.  He was eager to witness his first good tornado, and he was more optimistic about seeing a tornado than I was.  Kirstie and Dallas and I left Enid around 10 a.m. and made it to Guymon for lunch around 1:30 p.m.  We gassed up at Boise City with the Tempest group and then made a bee-line for a tornado-warned cell in western Baca County.  Someone had seen a funnel cloud with the new storm there already!  When we got into our vehicles in Boise City, I kiddingly said to Dallas, “Let’s go see the tornado!”

Our cell put down a nice tornado for a minute or so when we were east of the cell along 287.  We were several miles south of Springfield, and the cell was some 10-13 miles to our west.  We scooted west a few miles on a dirt road, and the nicely organized cell managed to put down a couple more tornadoes at the same time!  After these events, the storm was practically stationary for perhaps 60 minutes.  It sported a wall cloud, but made no serious effort to tornado.  Our group got a lot closer to the cell during this time frame, and then the cell started to spin strongly at low levels again.  We looked up into the corkscrew wall cloud area and heard a hail roar and a whooshing sound, which is sometimes heard during a tornado.  A beefy funnel extended about 2/3 of the way to the ground, but did not touch down apparently.  We were REALLY close, and the cell was moving south at 3 mph, but the storm was in major “tease” mode.  Dang.

We dropped south to Road J, I think, and headed east towards Campo.  We stopped several times with numerous other chase groups, and viewed amazingly wrapped-up wall clouds/updrafts and occasional funnel clouds.  The action area seemed to jump quickly eastward, and we trekked into Campo and south a few miles.  Again, the action area was nearly overhead, and it seemed ready to go to town…but we had seen this scenario before, over and over again.

But this time was different.  A funnel cloud quickly descended just to our northwest, and just west of U.S. 287.  The funnel touched the ground less than a mile away, and a debris whirl rose up.  The thing was moving towards us, too!  We had a minute to watch, and then moved south fast!  The tornado was strengthening quickly, and was moving towards the road.  I could not understand why some folks stood their watching as it neared them — were they in a trance?

I must have dropped south a mile or so and then stopped and looked back north.  The tornado was magnificent!  See the photos!  I shot a bunch of stills with the 16-35mm wide-angle, and Kirstie helped me to shoot video, too.  The RFD was wicked and scared Dallas off farther to the south another mile.  Kirstie and I stooped low to the ground on the road, on the east side of my SUV, to stay out of the wind and rain and hail.  We could look almost straight up and see the rapidly rotating funnel at cloud base — what a sight!  Since I usually chase with the tour group, I tend to stay back a mile or more from tornadoes, but this was my chance to get some closer shots, and I took full advantage!  I had no data or GPS onboard, and elected to jump onto an unpaved road eastbound that the tornado was near.  We were getting slammed by one-to-two-inch hail and strong winds, and I managed several more minutes of stills and pretty close video, with fast suction-spot vortices whirling around at the surface.  Finally, a rainbow appeared and framed the tornado a little.  I had to get out and get some stills of that — and paid for it with a big hail stone to the back of the neck.

That was definitely the main show.  We continued south into the OK Panhandle and east again before getting into Boise City.  We saw another tornado for several minutes to our north, and later, just before sunset, saw another brief one well east of Keyes to our immediate east.  When the storm decided to start making tornadoes again, it didn’t waste any time!  I got lots of stills and video of all of the tornadoes, but the stills provided below are all of the Campo tornado.  Thanks to everyone in our group today and other chasers on the storm for a great, safe chase.