This is a chaotic image because that was a chaotic experience. Even though the "Bell City" tornado was small, it was intensifying and moving almost at us at over 50 mph in straight transnational speed, so we had to get south enough for safety as it crossed the road with a robust, audible whoosh, about 1/2 to 1/3 mile behind us. A strong spray of rain in the proximal rear-flank/occlusion … [Read more...]
Mesocyclone Blast
This big, complex, highly electrified, heavy-precip supercell had formed over my head in eastern Amarillo and dropped 4+ inch hail in Palo Duro Canyon. It dutifully blasted a cloud-to-ground lightning strike through a mesocyclonic updraft base on the east flank, and clearly meant serious business. Still, the suspicious feature at distant left, behind the clump of trees, was a dense rainshaft—not … [Read more...]
Starter Tornado
Despite living in Missouri for over 3 years in the mid 1990s, and chasing there many times since, this was my first tornado in the state, in a part I hadn't visited before. This view samples the first minute or two of the first of several tornadoes produced by the parent supercell. Tightly rotating dust rose quickly to the broad condensation funnel aloft, confirming unambiguously what this was. … [Read more...]
Texas Supercell and Wildflowers
Moving south-southeastward from the southeastern Great Plains to the “Palo Pinto Mountains” (a northern extension of the Hill Country, but with much older limestone more common to eastern Kansas and northwestern Missouri), this strengthening supercell provided multiple opportunities to witness its splendid structure behind quintessential Texas foregrounds. Here, a field of native prairie … [Read more...]
Tornadic Supercell Tower
Never does the grandeur and splendor of the High Plains sky manifest as fully as when firmly under command of a tornadic supercell, visible across the entire updraft and from the bottom of the tornado through anvil high overhead. For lifelong storm observers, this very view is the object of dreams, realized rarely, and when it finally appears, appreciated with indescribable depths of reverence. … [Read more...]
Twilight Sky Swirl
Processing the energy of a high-yield nuclear bomb, capable of protracted destruction in multiple ways (hail, lightning, floods, severe wind, tornadoes), a supercell like this commands attention as much for is deceptively graceful beauty as its manifest danger. Smoothly curving cloud streaks trace air movement as condensed water vapor flows along low streamlines, ice crystals sweeping on high, … [Read more...]
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