Stormchasing Tornado Alley 2010
I was chasing from mid-April to late June, 2010 . Saw a lot of tornadoes but missed a few for various reasons ( very early initiation, a fallen tree blocking road, downed power lines blocking road twice, stuck in mud, or wrong target choice ). Still, here is a selection of images.
Cameras used were a 18MP Canon EOS 550D = T2i , with two Canon lenses ( a superwide angle zoom, EF-S 10-22 , and a fast and sharp prime lens, EF 50mm f/1.4 ) , and a 6MP Casio Exilim EX-F1 with a x12 zoom.
April 19. A nice funnel cloud in northeastern New Mexico, east
of Springer , along highway 56 ... on a minimal risk "SEE
TEXT" day ! Not too bad, considering that my laptop had crashed
and I was chasing alone, just with a smartphone to
get data and radar...
Click
here for video clip
April 22, in the TX panhandle, my first tornado of 2010. This
was west of highway 70, northwest of Clarendon, TX.
same tornado as above, evolving.
May 10. After dropping several brief vortices / tornadoes south
of Wakita, OK along highway 11, this fastmoving storm
starts forming a large wedge tornado north of Medford, OK.
May 18, funnel with ANTIcyclonic rotation near Stinnett, TX,
east of Dumas. .
VIDEO
May 19 , Near Loyal, OK, intense rain/wind, and probably a
rainwrapped tornado. Several powerlines down, and we saw a power
flash just moments before. With Jim
Leonard.
VIDEO
Next : May 22nd, Large cone tornado in South Dakota. On Highway 47 north of Hoven, looking northwest. Chasing with Jim Leonard.
on highway 47, driving north, a new tornado starts heading
towards Bowdle... Powerlines have just been downed, the
road was blocked, and we missed the large wedge tornado that hit
Bowdle.
Next : May 24, in South Dakota, on highway 73 between Howes and Faith, looking west, storm produced several tornadoes. Chasing with Jim Leonard, Reed Timmer, . Sadly we barely missed the first tornado, which crossed highway 34 west of Howse.
and then came May 31st. We are on dirt roads southwest of Campo in extreme southeast Colorado. The dirt road dead-ends but we still see the tornado, to our east.
first, the images shot in 6MP with the Casio Exilim EX F1
later, in the OK panhandle, we saw the tornado rope out ( was it still the same, or another one ?)
getting ready to rope out.
Now, images shot in 18MP RAW with the Canon EOS 550D . Some are cropped.
increased gamma , contrast.
roping out
June 13 in the OK panhandle, a rain-wrapped tornado.
finally, 2 lightning images in daylight, shot in Iowa
looking forward to chasing in Tornado Alley again... Wanna join ? contact klipsi@bluewin.ch .