From the left (SE) side of a ferociously turbulent wall cloud, this classical looking tornado formed, wrapping in and out of dense rain curtains, clearly visible to me only for about half its 28 minute lifespan. Light conditions were dark and contrast poor, as often is the case under huge and rainy supercells, but I did manage to get a couple of passable shots of the vortex before it fattened and got buried in the murk for good, and we had to leave the location. At the time of the photo, the tornado was producing F2 damage S of Hill City and very near the location where I shot the initial wall-cloud photo about 15 minutes earlier and 5 miles farther SW. I had to fumble around changing film right as the tornado began, missing the early part, and only later realized the second roll (identical in brand and specs to the first) somehow was much grainier and skewed unnaturally purple. [Color here is digitally corrected to look like it did with eyes.] This all made me hesitant to rescan and process this image for the new SkyPix, since the noise was natively in the film. Those flaws were extremely annoying, and very uncharacteristic for 100-speed Fujifilm products of the era! But if you can excuse that, the tornado itself was a marvelous specimen, rolling along right to left.
3 ENE Hill City KS (9 Jun 5) Looking SW
39.3753, -99.7847
RADARHill City Tornado
From the left (SE) side of a ferociously turbulent wall cloud, this classical looking tornado formed, wrapping in and out of dense rain curtains, clearly visible to me only for about half its 28 minute lifespan. Light conditions were dark and contrast poor, as often is the case under huge and rainy supercells, but I did manage to get a couple of passable shots of the vortex before it fattened and got buried in the murk for good, and we had to leave the location. At the time of the photo, the tornado was producing F2 damage S of Hill City and very near the location where I shot the initial wall-cloud photo about 15 minutes earlier and 5 miles farther SW. I had to fumble around changing film right as the tornado began, missing the early part, and only later realized the second roll (identical in brand and specs to the first) somehow was much grainier and skewed unnaturally purple. [Color here is digitally corrected to look like it did with eyes.] This all made me hesitant to rescan and process this image for the new SkyPix, since the noise was natively in the film. Those flaws were extremely annoying, and very uncharacteristic for 100-speed Fujifilm products of the era! But if you can excuse that, the tornado itself was a marvelous specimen, rolling along right to left.
3 ENE Hill City KS (9 Jun 5) Looking SW
39.3753, -99.7847
RADAR