E-mail

Last Updated on Saturday, 09 January 2010 17:41 Written by Roger Hill

2004

User Rating: / 0
PoorBest 

May 12 was to be the best of days and the worst of days. I arrived on the first cell to develop. We were sitting in Pratt as the dry line bulge kicked off the first respectable towers. However there were to be 4 cells this day and 3 of the 4 produced tornadoes. I was able to see the very first tornado, but missed the Attica tornado because I was still chasing the northern cell, which still had incredible structure. One storm chasing rule cost me, and that was to NEVER leave your storm unless you know it is dying or dead. And this cell wasn't dying or dead. Finally, it crossed the cold front and became undercut, thus pretty much ending its tornado potential, so I blasted south and intercepted the Isabel cell, then caught the Anthony wedge (Harper county) at dark. This storm had incredible structure and looked like a striated soda can at dark. It was VERY electrified.

Sawyer tornadic storm develops.	Harper county storm develops.
Sawyer storm with vault region.	Occlusion and wet RFD develop on the Sawyer storm.
Tornado! A 70 second tornado. Very brief.	Another closer shot.
Isabel funnel buried in the rain.	Isabel supercell. BEAUTIFUL structure!!!
The original supercell to the west with beaver tail and wall cloud. Beautiful storm!	A look over my shoulder shows the first supercell being undercut by the front.
As we punched the core of the Harper county tornadic supercell from the north, a look south reveals a LARGE wedge tornado!!!	Enhanced photo to see the large tornado. This tornado was rated F4.
Lightning lights up the supercell vault region and inflow band.	One of the numerous incredible lightning strikes from the anvil of this storm.