{"id":10963,"date":"2014-05-21T00:00:11","date_gmt":"2014-05-21T08:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/?p=10963"},"modified":"2014-11-14T14:35:15","modified_gmt":"2014-11-14T22:35:15","slug":"may-21-2014-aurora-co-tornado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/2014\/05\/21\/may-21-2014-aurora-co-tornado\/","title":{"rendered":"May 21, 2014 Aurora, CO, tornado"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"140521_7500_Aurora_CO\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Aurora, CO, “tornado” video by William Reid<\/a> and by Bob Smith<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Our chase hopes were on the high side today as shear and instability appeared more than adequate for a decent tornado threat in the Denver, CO, area, eastward to about Highway 71 in Morgan and Washington counties.\u00a0 SPC painted a 10-percent tornado bulls-eye near Denver.\u00a0\u00a0 Here is the wording from SPC on the 1630Z outlook:<\/p>\n

...CO\/WY...\r\n   TODAY WILL SEE ANOTHER ROUND OF ISOLATED SUPERCELL THUNDERSTORMS\r\n   OVER NORTHEAST CO AND SOUTHEAST WY.  SOUTHEASTERLY LOW LEVEL WIND\r\n   FIELDS APPEAR MORE FAVORABLE THAN YESTERDAY FOR MORE SUSTAINED\r\n   ROTATING UPDRAFTS.  ALSO...EASTERLY\/SOUTHEASTERLY LOW LEVEL WINDS\r\n   OVER EASTERN CO WILL HELP TO STRENGTHEN THE DCVZ WHERE A LOCALLY\r\n   ENHANCED RISK OF TORNADOES IS EXPECTED TODAY.  VERY LARGE HAIL AND\r\n   DAMAGING WINDS WILL ALSO BE POSSIBLE.<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
From Goodland, KS, we motored west to Limon for a quick lunch, and then continued west on I-70 to Byers and the eastern edge of Denver.\u00a0 Strong updrafts were already exploding by about 1:20 p.m. MDT!\u00a0 It was a good thing that we were already in position.\u00a0 A healthy storm was to our southwest, towards Littleton, and was moving to the northeast.\u00a0 I elected to brave the midday traffic congestion and to dive into the urban area.\u00a0 Bob and Rook steered the group southward on E-470 on the east side of Aurora, and I tried to figure out where an adequate viewing spot might be.\u00a0 In addition, I was also trying to squeeze in a really quick pit stop for a few guests, as it is a good idea to to do this prior to getting into the heat of the chase.\u00a0 After about four miles, we exited at E-470 at Jewell and headed west into Aurora.\u00a0 We managed a really fast pit stop at a fast food joint near Buckley and E Iliff, and then our eyes were drawn to the northwest, where a new storm had suddenly developed.\u00a0 (I don’t think this was the same storm as the one that we had originally been targeting, near Littleton.)<\/p>\n
A very menacing and LOW lowering was in the works beneath this developing supercell.\u00a0 The action area was perhaps only five miles away, and all we had to do was to head north on Buckley to get into position.\u00a0 With each mile north, back towards I-70, it looked more and more like this wall cloud was serious about dropping a tornado on Aurora, Colorado.\u00a0 Our street changed names from Buckley to Airport Rd around Mississippi.\u00a0 These two images were taken along S Airport Road near 6th Avenue (at 1:56 p.m. MDT) and then at E Colfax (at 1:58 p.m.).\u00a0 The view is to the northwest.<\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\"140521_7493_Aurora_CO\"<\/a> \"140521_7495_Aurora_CO\"<\/a><\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
I needed to stop fairly soon as I didn’t want to be directly in the path of this feature.\u00a0 Fortunately, the view to the west opened up nicely as we drove into a less-developed area.\u00a0 We stopped in a parking lot along Airport Road, just south of Smith Road, and had a chance to get out and watch the developing and rotating wall cloud to our west-northwest.\u00a0 The images below were taken from 2:00 p.m. to 2:03 p.m. MDT.<\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\"140521_7496_Aurora_CO\"<\/a> \"140521_7497_Aurora_CO\"<\/a> \"140521_7498_Aurora_CO\"<\/a> \"140521_7499_Aurora_CO\"<\/a> \"140521_7500_Aurora_CO\"<\/a> \"140521_7502_Aurora_CO\"<\/a> \"140521_7504_Aurora_CO\"<\/a><\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
For a few moments at least, it appeared that a funnel cloud was threatening to “touch down” and that a decent-sized tornado was imminent.\u00a0 A tornado was reported with this storm in this area, but I can not say that I definitely observed a tornado during this time frame.\u00a0 This youtube clip <\/a>shows some of my video while parked at this spot along Airport Road, and this link is to great GoPro footage of the event by Tempest driver Bob Smith.<\/a><\/p>\n
We started to be impacted by some wrap-around rain and RFD winds as the area of broad rotation moved more to our north-northwest.\u00a0 We scooted east to near Tower Road and stopped again.\u00a0 This view to the northwest was at 2:06 – 2:07 p.m., and it shows a very large and suspicious lowering with rain-wrapping developing.\u00a0 All of these images are with the full-frame Canon 5D with a 21mm wide-angle lens, so the action was quite a bit closer than the pictures might suggest!\u00a0 By this time, this action area was likely just north of I-70, near Pena Blvd.<\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\"140521_7505_Aurora_CO\"<\/a> \"140521_7508_Aurora_CO\"<\/a><\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
From this point it seemed a bit too dangerous and ill-advised to try to stay close to the potentially tornadic area, especially with the increasingly HP (high precipitation) nature of the storm.\u00a0 We got a bit east of the storm and had good looks at the structure and precipitation-filled low-level features.\u00a0 If there was tornadic activity with the storm, it was not obvious from our viewing positions.\u00a0 The images below were from 2:40 to 3:00 p.m. in the DIA area.<\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\"140521_7513_Aurora_CO\"<\/a> \"140521_7519_Aurora_CO\"<\/a> \"140521_7525_Aurora_CO\"<\/a> \"140521_7531_Aurora_CO\"<\/a> \"140521_7542_Aurora_CO\"<\/a><\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
The supercell continued to the east, towards Watkins and then Byers.\u00a0 By this time, the chaser crowd had increased to ridiculous levels.\u00a0 The line of chasers along U.S. 36 east of Byers was unreal.\u00a0 The action area of the storm was just north of U.S. 36, and was moving to the east.\u00a0 Another low-level wrap-up ensued, and then precipitation wrapped around.\u00a0 A tornado was reported by some, but again our group was unable to discern a tornado for certain.\u00a0 The storm got messier and a bit less interesting as it dragged the crowd east towards Last Chance, and it was time to break off the chase.\u00a0 We dropped south to I-70 and watched a couple of other new areas of convection, but these did not impress.\u00a0 I found some rooms for the group in Stratton.<\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
\"140521_7556_Byers_CO\"<\/a> \"140521_7561_Byers_CO\"<\/a> \"140521_7572_Byers_CO\"<\/a> \"140521_7575_Byers_CO\"<\/a> \"140521_7580_Byers_CO\"<\/a> \"140521_7584_LastChance_CO\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
  Aurora, CO, “tornado” video by William Reid and by Bob Smith   Our chase hopes were on the high side today as shear and… [Read More]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[60,11,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10963","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-60","7":"category-supercells","8":"category-tornadoes","9":"entry","10":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10963"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11617,"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10963\/revisions\/11617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}