- TORNADO !!
- Osage County, Oklahoma. What a cool day. It was the last day
of Cloud 9 Tours for 2011 and we had one last chance to find
a tornado. One storm formed right in our target area and despite
the lack of roads there and the many, many tall trees, we were
able to get into a great position to watch it.This storm had
it all. Great structure, a tornado that touched down in the middle
of nowhere, spectacular lightning, 2 1/2 inch hail.
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- The tornado was spotted in the last
hours of the last day of the last tour. Whew, it felt so great
to capture this for the folks on tour 3. Talk about pulling it
off at the last minute! The forecast today only had a 2% tornado
risk so that makes it even more special. All it takes is to get
onto the right storm and be in the exact right spot and magic
can happen.
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- The funnel snaked its way out of the
storm and even though the condensation funnel didn't form all
the way down, the circulation was most certainly on the ground.
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- It was amazing to be directly underneath
this "mothership" looking supercell that clearly had
plenty of rotation. another bonus was that there were not that
many other storm chasers there so there wasn't the usual frenzy
of traffic or difficulty finding places to pull over.
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- The lightning display was especially
nice as well, with plenty of bolts with lots of branches. I even
was able to get a shot of a lightning bolt with its reflection
in the van window.
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- Because this was the last chase day
of our season, we had to get back to Norman so that everybody
could catch their flights. We got in late, but nobody cared!.
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