April 6, 2006 Storm Chase- Capturing our First Tornado!
Before moving to Washington at the end of 2009 we lived in Lincoln, Nebraska. Though we didn't have much scenery there to go and explore as we do here, our one passion was watching the amazing Spring and Summer storms that the area was known for.
It was 2006- we had been storm chasing for a couple of years up to this point, at a very amateur level. We had minimal equipment, would check weather radar at home and pick a spot within a 60 mile radius and head out, equipped at that point with nothing but our National Weather Service emergency radio that plays any and all storm alerts in the area to help guide us once we were out. We witnessed many amazing severe storms and wall clouds with developing tornadoes that always fizzled out before touching the ground. We had never actually seen a tornado on the ground, though.
We had, however, wanted to take the next step- to get out on a more involved chase. Our opportunity for that came to us in early April. By April 4th the storm prediction center was showing great concern for the conditions that would be in place in SE Nebraska and eastern Kansas for widespread severe weather and tornadoes on the 6th.
I was discussing this setup with storm chasers on the stormtrack.org discussion forum- and as luck would have it a chase team from Omaha had offered to have us tag along that day. What an opportunity!
The morning of the 6th came and the forecast was still on track for a severe weather outbreak later that day. My initial impression was to head south to Kansas, just across the border to Marysville.
We agreed to meet our storm chase partners in Beatrice, NE (about 40 miles south of Lincoln) at the public library there. We arrived there at around noon, I went in and met our partners for the day as they were using a computer there to get weather radar updates (this was the time just before smartphones and wireless data, public library stops throughout the day were a part of the routine for most storm chasers).
At that point they had found that the storm prediction center just issued a tornado watch for our entire area- this one was a watch with more urgency- a "PDS" (Particularly Dangerous Situation):
Storms were already starting to develop to the southwest of us with some of them reaching severe levels. We decided to continue south as originally planned- just across the Kansas border.
We turned off of the main highway just a few miles south of the border, onto a gravel road and headed west for a few miles. We stopped on top of a hill there at a great vantage point to see for many miles around us. You could see the dark clouds off to the southwest as they were beginning to roll in- our chase partners called another member of their team who was at home keeping a close eye on the radar and storm warnings. He was tracking these storms to the southwest of us as they were moving right into our area- so we decided to stay put for 20 minutes or so.
During that 20 minute period we were listening to local radio in the car- they were cutting in with weather reports of the first tornado on the ground, damaging grain bins on farms about 30 miles to our southwest as those storms rapidly intensified. At that point we continued west just a few more miles to the tiny town of Mahaska, at which point we headed south with a bit more urgency to be able to intercept these storms as they moved into the area. Once we reached Kansas state highway 36 we headed east towards the town of Washington.
At this point a supercell storm had moved just to the southwest of us, to the point to where the sky was a dark black color in that direction with frequent flashes of lightning. On the radio they had switched over to nonstop coverage of the weather as a couple more brief tornadoes had been spotted by farmers in the area. We took a chance and headed south just before reaching the town of Washington, to try to cut straight down to that storm cell. This turned out to be a mistake- we were headed straight into the storm as another possible tornado was detected by radar in that spot. We couldn't see it as it was rain-wrapped- and if we would continue down this road we'd drive right into it without even knowing it- so we quickly turned around and headed back north to highway 36 to get back out ahead of the storm. Once reaching the highway we turned east to Washington as originally intended.
As we entered the west end of the town the tornado sirens started blaring, and on the radio they issued a tornado warning for the county we were in, with a radar-indicated tornado (radar detected rotation but no visual confirmation made yet of an actual tornado on the ground) right at the town of Washington. We stopped at a mini mart there to take shelter as the rain and the hail moved in. Watching through the window there in the store we could see a developing funnel right over head! Just then the store manager told us we had to leave- apparently their policy during tornado warnings is to evacuate and close the store, and staff go into a nearby building for shelter. (odd)
At that point we got into our cars and got back onto the highway driving east through town as the funnel we had seen had moved off to the east.
A few minutes later we exited town and came to a small hill where a bunch of cars were pulled over to the side of the highway, and just to the northeast there it was- the funnel we had watched just minutes before had touched down!
We pulled over to the side of the highway and began filming- the rough video can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbsZUtJJHA8We watched the tornado in awe for 6-7 minutes before it fizzled out (as seen at the end of the video). At that point we continued driving east for a bit and headed north at a farm that- to our horror- had been hit by the tornado as we were watching it from afar just a few minutes before. The house had been completely destroyed, people were just climbing out from the rubble with assistance from many others who had already arrived (neighbors, storm chasers? Not sure) at that point and behind us ambulances and fire trucks were already on their way.
The National Weather Service damage survey of this event with pictures from this farm can be found here:
The outbreak of storms continued in earnest into the evening off to our east, but at this point we had our fill and were a couple hours from home, so we continued north on our way back across the border home to Lincoln.
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