Three consecutive crazy chase days…
On Friday, May 20, we were on a beautiful and colorful supercell at sunset east of Pratt, KS. The clouds and colors were insane!
Saturday, May 21…we chased the tornadic supercell which moved over Topeka, KS. This was a gorgeous sculpted supercell with a persistent and rapidly rotating wall cloud with frequent funnel clouds. We got right up next to it at one point, and the motion was unreal! The thing produced some weak and brief tornadoes which we missed, after it became rain-wrapped especially. Topeka dodged a huge bullet.
Sunday, May 22 — Joplin, MO, was struck by a huge tornado. We were on this storm when it was near Parsons, KS, and then we dropped south to another storm when it became apparent that we could not catch the Joplin tornado (we were 30 minutes behind it). We popped out of rain at Southwest City, MO, and a large tornado emerged through the murk to our NW, just a mile or two distant! Video of this tornado was shot by a cameraman who is with us for The Weather Channel, and is being aired today on TWC. The roar of the tornado was quite pronounced, the loudest tornado roar I have ever heard. We made it back to Tulsa—looks like 2 or 3 more big days for this group and then a few needed days of rest!
Images later…
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