April 22, 2001 Ithaca Nebraska Tornado

I left Blair around 3:00, in a tornado watch for Eastern Nebraska. I wound my way down to near David City. I got north of one of the first tornado warned storms. I waited for it to move north and it pretty much just fizzled out. Things looked pretty bleak. I decided the only thing to do was to try and get into some good winds or something. Seemed as though storms were everywhere. I drove back east, kind of towards home, punching storm after storm. As I was east of Mead I heard the tornado warning for Lancaster county. It was moving nne at 50mph, through the same air that all these storms had been moving through. I figured no way would it produce in this air. I then said ah what the heck and positioned myself se of Mead.

I couldn't see much in the way of any storm. Then I began to notice what looked like a broad area of outflow moving north and wanting to push east. This is about the time my tape runs out. I was still just wanting to get into some good winds so this looked like a great place. I then raced back north towards Mead to see if I could get into a good area. The first image is looking sw at the gust front moving north. The image to the right here is heading north as it had flown by me.

Not long into this journey I saw a funnel forming. I was so astonished to see this.

Within seconds it was on the ground, snaking its way quickly to the north.

Zoomed in for a better look.

The bottom 1/4 of it snaked around and kicked up a bit of debis, which you can barely make out on here.

I tried to capture the debris/tornado, but at this point rain had quickly wrapped around it. The debris/egg beater action is in the center of this pic just above two of those trees.

This tornado was hauling.

Maybe 30 seconds later and it is up there in the rain about 2 miles. As I get past this short line of pine trees it is visible again but has lifted.

Even the action above my head at this point was a little spooky.

After it lifted, another one started to form to the right. The motion was crazy to say the least. That is some of the motion that was just previously over my head.