Some of these images are from the outbreak of tornadoes on May 27, 1997 and some are from other storm events.Severe Storm and Tornado Images
Sometimes I go storm chasing, and sometimes the storms come looking for me! This is a shot from the front porch of my home on May 9, 1981 about 11:15am. Although the lower portion of the tornado is not visible in the photo, it was a tornado. When first observed, it was on the surface of Lake Belton, which is about 3 miles west of my home (to the left down the street). The tornado dissipated as it passed overhead, then reformed and damaged buildings in the southwest part of Temple, about 3 miles east of my house.
A few minutes after 1:25PM on May 27, 1997. This tornado
is southwest of Waco, about 3/4 mile southeast of FM2113 near the Spring
Valley community, and is moving slowly toward the west-southwest. The dark
debris cloud at the base of the tornado is the result of a plowed field
of dark soil over which the tornado was passing. Note the clear slot (probably
associated with the rear flank downdraft (RFD) wrapping into the circulation
at cloudbase from behind and to the left of the tornado.
This shot was minutes later than the one above. I think
it may be the most spectacular of the day! I moved northeast to the intersection
of FM2113 and Mackey Ranch Road and the view is toward the southeast. The
tornado was still moving slowly toward the southwest, and shortly after
this shot, destroyed a mobile home and barns, and damaged a site-built
residence. Fortunately, no one was injured. Note that the clear slot (probably
associated with the RFD) has virtually wrapped around the tornado at and
just below cloudbase. A dear friend pre-emptively captioned this photograph
"the GSC". Email me if you can decipher this ... no telling what you may
win!
This shot was as the tornado began to dissipate. The time
is 1:35pm and the tornado at ground level has been severed from the circulation
aloft by the wrapping clear slot, probably associated with the RFD. A different
friend (Bruce Thomas, chief meteorologist at another local television station
at the time) titled this one: "the road to nowhere!". Want to argue the
point?
Here is a radar image (reflectivity, 0.5 deg elevation)
from NEXRAD radar at Granger, Texas at 1:35pm CDT showing the storm which
spawned this tornado. It is beginning to show the "flying eagle" configuration
which marks it as a supercell storm. The darker blue lines within the pale
blue 'ground clutter' probably depict mesoscale boundaries which played
a role in the evolution of this storm system. (My thanks to
Don Burgess and Mike Magsig, Nexrad OSF-OTB for the use of this and other
radar images.)
Just a little less than two hours later, this photo was
made from the south side of Jarrell, Texas as a rapidly intensifying tornado
(at least the seventh of the day from this storm system) approaches the
town from the north. The tornado was moving slightly left of top-to- bottom
and passed just west of the main town of Jarrell, but directly over the
Double Creek residential subdivision (out of sight behind
the trees to the left of this photo).
One of the joys of springtime storm chasing in Texas is
the explosion of color from wildflowers along the roadsides as the season
progresses. I like to think of this image as depicting a "roadside sentinel",
the old cedar post standing guard over his flock of wildflowers.
But lest you get the idea that I'm geocentric, here's one of my favorite shots of all times, from one of my favorite places of all times! This is a sunset overlooking an old Hawaiian fish pond at the Waikoloa resort on the west coast of the Big Island of Hawaii. The palm trees in the background surround the beach at Anaeho'omalu Bay.
Click here to access my
Severe Weather Outlooks and Forecasts section.
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Click here to access my Central Texas Tornado Outbreak section, which is under construction.
(As time permits, I'll be adding more of my own work as well as links to other locations. And for those of you on slow servers, I do have plans to thumbnail the images here and provide links, to facilitate loading of this page.This page was last updated on 3-8-2000.)
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