TornadoVideos.net

Posted At: September 17, 2006 @ 12:57 AM

Posted By: Reed Timmer

After 60,000+ miles driven, two destroyed windshields, and one tornado from 30 miles away so far in 2006, we finally saw some tornadoes!!  We intercepted the storm immediately after it initiated around 3:30 pm, and a wall cloud was observed right away.  As the storm raced towards our location, the textbook wall cloud began to rotate rapidly, and a tornado warning was issued, I believe around 4 pm.  As the wall cloud approached us at a high rate of speed, it began to tighten up into a violently rotating bulb, which had a fairly large dust cloud underneath it shortly thereafter.  We were only about 1/2 mile north of this developing tornado as it raced northeastward at 45+ mph.  Just as the condensation funnel was extending to the ground in the field next to us, we were blasted by a heavy rain curtain that obscured our view temporarily.  Thus, we raced to the east and then north and witnessed a fairly intense, white stovepipe crossing the road to our north as we emerged from the hook rain.  This tornado had a beautiful rope phase, and overturned a semi-truck as it crossed I-90.  

The second tornado occurred in Minnehaha County and was a nice elephant trunk-shaped tornado with a large dust/debris cloud.  This tornado unfortunately destroyed a home, and the people survived the tornado in their basement with no injuries.  Shortly after this tornado, we saw a second rope tornado as the supercell crossed into Minnesota.  Some pictures of the various tornadoes are posted below, followed by a few radar images with our position indicated by the white circle.  A detailed chase log will be posted shortly.  The footage can be seen on CNN.