Another slight risk and t-storm watch did it for me again! Boy, I'm still all giddy inside! Met up with friend Dan Skoff in Guymon, OK and he left his vehicle and jumped in with me. We actually targeted Campo, CO (believe it or not). Got west of Campo and saw a brief funnel (later found out it was a tornado). The storm looked ok, but never really looked like it was going to put down a significant tornado. We found out differently after we got south of Campo a few miles. We were actually looking at rotation SE of Campo. We pulled over and I happened to look to my NW and saw the long funnel touch down about a half mile or so to our W/NW. It was coming straight at us, so we had to blast south a little ways to get out of the path. At times, we got hit with RFD winds of at least 75-80 mph and maybe higher. We followed the storm to Guymon and saw at least 3 more tornadoes as we followed it back. In 12 years of chasing, it's the best chase of my life. Being a chief met in Fayetteville, AR, Dan hasn't seen a good daytime tornado in 10 years. That came to an abrupt ending today! Everything went absolutely perfect for us today. I took all stills of the event, and Dan took the video. This is the best tornado I've ever seen! Oh, and it's the first tornado I've ever seen in Colorado.
Tornadoes like this make all the negative factors of storm chasing worth every minute.
EDIT: Forgot to mention that is was absolutely great to finally meet Lou Ruh and Dr. Jason Persoff. 2 very genuinely nice guys that make a storm chase even better! Like I've said before...tornadoes are great, but meeting awesome people on a chase is something I'll always cherish.
PHOTO #1 DAN SKOFF GETTING VIDEO OF THE STORM WEST OF CAMPO, CO
PHOTO #2 ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE FROM DAN SKOFF
PHOTO #3 DAN SKOFF POSING WITH A NICE LOWERING WEST OF CAMPO, CO
PHOTO #4 THE FIRST THING IS SAW WHEN I LOOKED TO THE NW. I BARELY GOT IT OUT, BUT I SAID...DAN A TORNADO. I REALLY COULDN'T BELIEVE IT.
PHOTO #5 IT GOT BIG VERY QUICKLY. TAKEN ABOUT 3 or 4 MINUTES AFTER THE FIRST TORNADO SHOT.
PHOTO #6 PROBABLY THE BEST WEATHER PHOTO I'VE EVER TAKEN. I CAN'T THINK OF ONE THAT TOPS THIS ONE. JUST A CLASSIC TORNADO PHOTO IF YOU ASK ME.
PHOTO #7 TORNADO AS IT'S PICKING UP A LOT OF DIRT AND CROSSING THE HIGHWAY
PHOTO #8 A RARE PHOTO OF A TORNADO AND RAINBOW IN THE SAME FRAME
2 comments:
I have to second the "best chase ever" comment. Was for me too. :)
What a glorious tornado!!!! Awesome chase!!!
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