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Tornado Outbreak

Viola, Kansas - May 19, 2013
What a day. We targeted southcentral Kansas for tornadoes today and managed to see two. The first one had a short funnel with a debris swirl on the ground and the other had a photogenic slender cone like shape that touched down extremely close to our vehicles. It was in the field right beside the road and the circulation passed directly overhead.
 
Unfortunately, several other supercell storms formed in central Oklahoma and ended up doing a lot of damage in places like Edward and Shawnee. Some of the tornadoes were long-track, violent ones. As of right now, I don't know the full extent of the damage or fatalities.
 
Charles Edwards, the owner of Cloud 9 Tours lives in Shawnee and at one point, we thought that a tornado was headed right for his house, but luckily, it passed about 3 miles to the west.
 
Today was one of those days when strong tornadoes hit some populated areas.

2013_05_19_B

2013_05_19_A
The first, brief tornado touches down.
An elephant trunk tornado forms and touches down very close to our location.