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October 9, 2001 Duncan Nebraska Tornado

Well this was the best day of the year for Nebraska, as it turned out, and I had to work till 5:30...grrr, but. I scurried out of work promptly at 5:30...well 5:25. My intent, with a tornado watch already inplace to the west and storms sw of Columbus moving nne, was to just fly west on highway 30 to Columbus. I called fellow chaser from Nebraska Steve Peterson just outside of town and of course once again he had to let me go because, "that thing has to be on the ground....#$@!! corn". Once again just like Seward I call Steve as he is getting a tornado(from the storm I position for). He lets me go and I give Philip Flory a call asking about this storm still sw of Columbus. Philip nails the timing and location of this storm placing it very near Columbus in 45 minutes. I was 47 miles from Columbus. Thanks goes out to Philip.

I talk with Steve again and he says, "I think I just filmed the best tornado of my life." He got the Seward F4 in June, and he's telling me this. I congratulated him and asked him where it was now. We then sort of cooridinated with one another on the storm's path. He was to its south now and I was still to its ne, moving west.

New tornado warning comes out as I'm entering Columbus. The warning is for Columbus. We talk back and forth and Steve thinks I should be fine getting to the west side of the city. All I could see at this point is precip to my sw. A few minutes later we talk again and now he's in rain and is only certain it's now between him and me...lol. I decide to stop in the middle of Columbus for fear it was moving directly into the city. The precip quickly lets up and shortly after this I could see an inflow tail pointing se from the storm. It can be seen in this image with the flag blowing due east into the storm to my sw.

Sirens are blaring throughout town for more or less the next half hour. I decide since I could now see I'd head westward to find "something". I'm now under this forward flank precip and what was or is the beavertail above.

Still not certain it's going to move to the west so I stop on the west side of the city so I'd have a due north option and a due east option.

This was still a very impressive storm after already putting down multiple tornadoes, one I believe was reported at 3/4 of a mile wide. Steve Peterson's pictures of the mesonader it put down south of here are extremely impressive(very large multivortex "mass" on the ground).

I sit in this spot waiting to see some sort of base.

This very large wall cloud forms pretty much due west of me near the town of Duncan.

My capture card, along with my vid cam can make night storms a pain in the butt to try and capture. It's a long story that will be fixed this winter with the purchase of a new vid cam. Anyway, had it been brighter out and such, I would be able to show this clear notch that works into this, as this soon to be tornado forms. It was there for some time with the wall cloud until voila, a multivortex tornado forms.

You could start to make out faster and faster cloud motions in this tornado.

The sirens start blaring in this location the same moment the tornado formed.

I just put a bunch of captures up as it's between trees when it's obviously a tornado.

It's really hard to do much with these pics.

I don't know maybe you can get the feel of fast action multivorticies under this.

It was a very brief nader.

Shortly after this the circulatoin weakens and the actions stops. It's not a great catch by any stretch, but for leaving work at 5:30, driving just over 70 miles and getting a tube just before 7:00......in October....I'll take it.

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