What the radar said: a look back at some earlier chases

Some radar grabs to show you our proximity to the rotation on a few of our chase days. Our location is the white circle. In most places, the rotation in the storm is marked by a couplet marker (the circular arrows). I have also provided a couple of relative velocity grabs, in red & green. The close proximity of bright red and bright green indicates high-speed wind moving in opposite directions, the telltale sign of a tornado or rapidly rotating wallcloud capable of producing one.

Click on the images for more detail, (twice to get the high resolution version).

Day 4: 17 May 2013 – Elsworth, Nebraska

This was us just Northeast of relatively weak couplet in central Nebraska. We saw some walnut hail, a brief horizontal funnel and some great structure on this cell.

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Day 5: 18 May 2013 – Bownell/South of Hays, Nebraska

This was us just after missing a touchdown near Brownell. This storm went on to drop another tornado just outside Hays shortly after. You can clearly see the telltale inflow notch around the centre of rotation, and how close we got.

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5:49pm

 

6:41pm

Day 7: 20 May – Ryan, Oklahoma

Some rotation near Ryan, Oklahoma. This was about 80 miles Southwest of the moster cell that decimated Moore. We got pretty close to this couplet at one point but couldn’t see anything at the time due to rain

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