This wide-angle photo—featuring multilevel tail clouds under the vault—was taken a couple seconds before the companion shot of the storm’s south side (a striated bell shape), with the two image domains overlapping in vicinity of the funnel at left. A small, short-lived tornado soon would evolve from that funnel cloud, nearly atop U.S. Highway 34. Whenever I see a tornado crossing a highway—but especially forming practically on it—I’m always worried that some unsuspecting driver is going to be caught unaware and become a casualty. Fortunately the visibility was good and traffic sparse enough to prevent such a terrible fate.
5 ESE Phillips NE (17 Jun 9) Looking WSW
40.8729, -98.1325