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Last Updated on Tuesday, 05 January 2010 00:05 Written by Roger Hill

2005

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What an interesting day this turned out to be. We started in Gillette, WY, blasted to Ekalaka, MT and sat north of town and waited, and waited and waited :) Finally a high based little LP updraft developed, as usual, and was severe warned. The interesting thing with this is it was feeding on 72/56 air. It moved north and weakened. Then another storm RAPIDLY developed and intensified, southwest of town. This storm became a BEAUTIFUL striated stack of plates supercell, and quickly developed a nice wall cloud. Condensation streamed in from the northeast and soon a lowering was observed almost to the ground. Rotation developed and a funnel formed AWAY from the wall cloud. It extended a third of the way to the ground and dissipated. Then a second funnel formed without being connected to the base, then developed a debris cloud and connected to the base!! Bizarre tornado! It stayed on the ground maybe 2 minutes and dissipated too. A third funnel formed and became a gorgeous elephant trunk tornado with INTENSE rotation and cascading motion in the cloud base. This also lasted 2-3 minutes. It also was rotating around the outer edge of the meso. A fourth funnel formed, a truncated cone, and became tornadic too with a debris cloud. This one lasted at least 5-6 minutes before dissipating. Eventually the lowering wrapped in rain, and then the rain curtains parted revealing a long slender funnel halfway to the ground!! What a surprise! I was NOT expecting this type of a supercell today at all!!

Large rotating updraft with clear slot and wall cloud. It doesn't get any better than that in Montana!	Slim elephant trunk tornado!!
Another shot of the tornado as it ropes out.	Second tornado forms, much larger than the first.
Another shot of the second tornado.	Third tornado forms and is a nice cone tornado!
Up close shot of the now truncated cone tornado.	After the system lined out, this BEAUTIFUL shelf cloud formed.