May 31, 2010: tornadoes

We ended up near Springfield, CO this afternoon.

Good choice.

There was apparently marginal deep shear over the area but that didn't stop a multiple tornado-producing supercell from taking aim at the area.

We were on the storm from about the time of dissipation of its first tornado, which we did see for about a minute. Then we stayed and stayed on the storm, remembering that patience is a virtue.

We watched the storm cycle up and down and up and down, at times putting out very pretty funnels about halfway to the ground.

We were running a little low on gas. We decided to book south to the nearest town to find a station. On the way, though, Dee (who was watching what had been a "meh" mesocyclone for us) told us there was a good funnel and that we needed to to stop. Justin took us off the road to a safe parking spot (hint hint to all you would-be chasers!) and we jumped out of the truck to see another beautiful funnel reaching about halfway to the ground.

Only this time it didn't stop there.

It proceeded to produce about 20 minutes of one of the most beautiful tornadoes I've ever seen (certainly top 3). We were in a perfect spot for the lighting and it was moving so slowly that I could take time-lapse photography of it. I ended up taking 900 pictures today. Seriously.

The tornado lifted and got obscured by precipitation. Soon after, though, another tornado appeared to the right of where the other one had been, and with the lighting where it was, I managed to get pictures of a tornado and a rainbow in the same shot.

Another 10 minutes later the storm we had given up for dead surprised us with yet another brief tornado.

So not too shabby for a low-expectations day!

So tomorrow we'll likely be playing somewhere between the Nebraska/Kansas border and Omaha. Things look pretty impressive there if the low-level jet can line up with the upper wave and the warm front.

This trip we're now on is a total success: great storm structure, great friends and a spectacular tornado. Anything we see tomorrow (today, now) is just gravy.

I apologize that I can't upload any pictures right now. As I said, I have 900 of them and they're all extremely large files. I will need to take a couple of days to sort through them before I can shrink them suitably for here and post them. But post them I will. I promise.