Storms of 2004

Pictures where taken b/w 9 and 12pm CDT. Pictures taken 1/4 mile north of Rankin, IL 2miles west of Paxton, 2 miles north of Urbana Illinois. this was good way to celebrate my birthday without having to drink, thanks for sobriety, and piercing the darkness in me God.

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Pictures where taken b/w 10 and 11pm EDT. Storm was pretty close to home this time. Pictures taken 2 miles east of Alto, Michigan. This was a good way to start a birthday week.

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As I approached Des Moines IA, a tornado warning was issued for Greene county with a nice hook echo. I intercepted the storm south of Boone on I-17 in Boone county, were it was gusting out on the south side of the storm hence the shelf cloud. 20 miles or so to my north in Story Co. they had two reported tornado touch downs. This storm had the best contrast to be able to take day lightning shots, not all of them turned out the way I had hoped, but they still showed up which pleased me. As I was shooting these first few I observed an area with persistent counter clockwise rotation. No funnel just rotation. On route 59 about 20 miles east of Omaha NE, and an hour and a half after the first intercept I came upon this cell that had just come from Council Bluff. there was a nice wall cloud updraft region on the south side of the storm, with moderate south south east midlevel inflow, some nice mammatus in the anvil, and a rather large shelf cloud to my right causing NW out flow, The surface winds were out of the SE until the gust front reached me, which was probably allowing undercut of the wall cloud Headed again back to 59 south and stopped directly beneath the southern flanking line/ hacked wall cloud. Finally issued a tornado warning for Montgomery Co. I observed a white cone funnel, but for some odd reason did not turn out in any pictures. Oh well it was a beautiful way to start a journey to Kansas for a friends funeral. He is resting peacefully and is fully healed and restored.

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A Moderate risk for Michigan Indiana and Ohio. One tornado warning for Cass Co. MI, and two for central Indiana. no tornadoes were reported, but significant wind prevailed, with frequent lightning. The pictures should of turned out better. I guess that's what ya get when you take it to a one hour photo because you get impatient.

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Weak rotating wall cloud but a very beautiful setting when I could get away from most of the trees we have in Michigan. Moved up the road to get closer, only posted one of the few I have from this spot but you could see it was rotating better from this view point. The next two are about 10 minutes later in another position north of Manchester, Michigan SE of Jackson about 20 miles or for you racing fans about 5 -7 miles NW of the Michigan SPEEDWAY. The wall cloud lost its depth and rose to become shelf structure and therefore, I take pics of lightning but wasn't much of that anymore so I departed.

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An incredible day but devastating for many families. This page is dedicated to the Lambrecht family and the rest of the families that lost homes and belongings during the day of June 12, 2004. All six tornadoes were seen 4 were captured on video and still photography Via digital Camera or a Nikon N65 SLR. Enjoy the pics and if you pray please pray for the families. It has been 6 years since this disastrous day. I pray that the families affected are growing through that experience and are recovering. May God bless the families who were effected.
In all 6 tornadoes were witnessed. not all were captured through a lens of a camera.

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I was able to shoot lightning with the guy I chased with this day. I am drawing a blank what his name was but he is friends with Dave Crowely.

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I was using a very poor quality video camera for this day and along with only my film camera.
I captured one large tornado over Chillicothe MO and another one about 5 miles east of that which was rain wrapped, but visible but not photogenic. I was also running to get clear of baseball size hail at the time of the second tornado, the reason why there are no pictures or stills of video. Tornado #3 occurred with in the HP rain hail core wrap, about 20 minutes after the tornado #2. tornado #4 happened out side of the rotating wall of rain and hail Near Macon. I had opportunity to take pictures of this and video but a outflow downdraft gave a 50 mph gust that knocked over my cameras as I was about to start shooting so I decided it was best to get a head of the whole system. As I did so lightning rained down out of the anvil all around me. I captured some of the most beautiful lightning set by a back drop of sunset a rare capture. The video camera I had this year was a joke so my video that I have of the tornadoes did not turn out but I did capture lots of the following lightning shots.

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This day was some what frustrating, however, it was very rewarding. I met Andrew Pritchard for the first time this day at a rest stop but they decided to go after the Springfield supercell. I stayed north near Bloomington, IL. I intercepted the storm on HWY 24, and followed it till it finally produced a tornado. It caused high end F2 damage to some farms. I watched this tornado rope out and was going to head to the interstate when I found my route had been cut off by a damaged home. As I approached there were some other skywarn spotters and a resident of the home. I was able to help assist them and the fire department that later showed up. After May 24, I headed back to help them clean up. The house was a total loss and they lost some hog barns as well. Thankfully there were no live stock there at the time. The tornado reached 250 yards wide at one point. My video of this tornado is very horrid but but here's the best of what I could do with it. Note: the still photo with the rope out and lightning bolt. The building was right next to the house that was hit. Hope the Bowman's are doing well today

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David Diehl and I caught some lightning on are way home in Northern IL.

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David Diehl and I targeted Russlle Kansas this day and our target verified. We witnessed a rotating wall cloud and funnels but it could not get its act together. The thunder on this storm was very deep and beautiful. I have some more pictures of this storm but I cannot seem to find them.

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This day David and myself met up with Amos Magliocco Tony L. and Scott Eubanks. We witnessed a prolific cyclic supercell. Here are my pictures and account. David Tony and I witnessed a tornado after dark but our video did not turn out, we were working with a VHS camcorder. A total of 9 tornadoes.

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Starting from the begging the back building supercell didn't not move for almost 3 hours. Later that night it produced a tornado warning and a very vivid lightning show.

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This evening I was heading down to meet David as we were to leave for the chase trip the following day. The Lord graced me with a beautiful light show.

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Arkansas chase.

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Intercepted a double touchdown around 5:40pm CST, 3 miles northwest of Greentown, IN and 5-6 miles north of Kokomo,IN. I n Miami county . I Was about to get video but the batteries died so I captured the one to the left as it was lifting, and the one to the right was still on the ground, both brief touch downs no longer than two minutes. Another touchdown about 10 minutes after the first three photos in Wabash County. Strong rotation rated F1. Had very weak contrast so I inverted the second picture to help you see it better. it was on the ground picking up debris. This is after the funnel on the ground this cyclone was picking up debris every now and then. This was a massive wrap around, with a nice Mesocyclone.

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