Yesterday was a chase day for me (no tornadoes), but was also a devestating day across Iowa and Kansas as tornadoes kill 6 including 4 teenagers in a boy scout camp north of Omaha/Council Bluffs. My heart goes out to those affected with these tragedies. This line of storms produced tornado warning after tornado warning from Iowa to Kansas including warnings which blared the tornado sirens in Omaha.
I chased the storms yesterday and intercepted several tornado warned storms. Here is the report that I posted on StormTrack:
No tornadoes yet again for me but an interesting chase to say the least as I again bounced around from tornado warned storms from Valley, Nebraska to Plattsmouth, while chasing through the metro Omaha area during rush hour! I intercepted the tornado warned storm near Valley where strong rotation was observed. I continued east on this storm along Maple Street in northwestern Omaha where the rotation continued to be observed as it headed into Omaha. As the storm moved further north and then to the east, I broke off of the storm as it headed towards Iowa to try my luck on storms developing to the south and west. Noticing a few minutes late that the OAX radar was not operating, switched over to the Hastings radar and tried to intercept the storm near Lincoln. I didn't make it that far as I then intercepted a newly warned storm near Gretna where a funnel cloud might have been observed. Headed back into Omaha and then south on 75 to intercept another tornado warned storm headed towards Bellevue and Offut AFB. Realizing I was in the path of the storm, I quickly headed south on 75 while observing some rotation. Did not see anything really from this storm and as darkness fell, decided to call it a day and head home.
While tornadoes occured in Nebraska and Iowa, another Kansas town falls victim to a tornado as the town of Chapman (between Abilene and Manhattan) had many businesses/houses damaged and/or destroyed. The pictures above shows a picture of downtown Chapman and a picture of the city limit sign of the city I took in 2002. Tornadoes also hit the northern part of Manhattan severely damaging several buildings on the Kansas State University campus.
The storms don't even appear to be done yet as another day of severe weather with possible tornadoes appear probable today in southeastern Kansas through Missouri and Iowa/Wisconsin/Illinois.
For those wondering about my live streaming, I have temporarily disabled it as my video capture device hardware which links my camcorder to my laptop is not working correctly. That and I will be purchasing an amp for the sprint card which should allow for a better signal and better video quality. The streaming should be up again sometime soon.
# posted by VORTEXpursuit.com Storm Chasing @ 6/12/2008 10:40:00 AM
