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June 9, 2005  Trego Center, KS

SW of Trego Center, Kansas a Wall Cloud develops and begins to spin, in each successive frame you can see the wall cloud tightening up.

In the frame above if you look very closely, just left of center, you can see a thin, faint, lightning strick.  No matter how faint....Still very deadly!

We got back into the van to move farther away from this rapidly approaching wall cloud, it was spinning hard, I wanted to keep my eye on this thing because it could put down a tornado any minute.  As we pulled away heading east I turned to look behind us and on our heels this monster tornado just floated in out of thin air and touched the dirt road behind the van.   And in moments the tornado became the size you see below.

The tornado was getting too close for comfort.  Rain and high winds were rocketing past us and into the tornado.  The tornado was becoming rain wrapped we had to leave our position.  we turned back to the east again , but stayed just alittle too close to the monster.  Although it had diminished in intensity it had the potential to come back again.  It is always unnerving when the you can no longer see the circulation but you know it is out there.  Photo Below -- Then suddenly a brief break in the rain showed us we were in fact running parallel to the tornado. 
 

IIf you look closely at the photo below the circulation is on the far right/ you can see the tip of the cone just below this writing on the right hand side of the photo and you can see the updraft on the lower right .

This home below suffered minor damage...a roof partially torn off.  The trees in the yard and the pole/hay barn did not fare as well....No injuries.

Kathryn Piotrowski took the photograph you see below of Sean Casey and his Tornado Car.

June 11, 2005

Swisher County Texas Tornado

November 27, 2005

Erie, KS Tornado

Short Video Clip of the Erie Tornado  1MB

001a  Wall Cloud that produced the Erie, KS Tornado

 
001b Wall Cloud that Produced the Erie, KS Tornado

002a beginning of Erie Tornado

002b Just North of Hwy146...Tornado on the ground.  This system was moving rapidly North-Northeast at 55-60mph

002c  North of Hwy146

002d North of 146

This incredible photograph was taken moments after the tornado went over the Huston residence.

Driving back south  we came across the damage path.  A tractor of some sort was flipped and several hay bales moved about 20 to 30 ft.

Grass imbedded around barbed wire fence

Huston residence, destroyed.  Only the south, partial east and west walls remained. The roof and entire back of the house was completely destroyed.

Neighbors, like Mike, Julie and Preston Page came to the rescue immediately helping to gather items strewn across the  yard.  The winds were howling at around 40-50 mph with blowing dust...now those are true friends.  The best.

More friends and neighbors arrive to lend a hand.

We were happy to run into our good friend, Brian Stertz www.vortextimes.com who also chased the Erie, KS tornado.

Kathryn Piotrowski after the chase.

Jeff Piotrowski, Brian Stertz, Rich Theiss

More of 11/27/05    Just a couple of cool pics of a rainbow and an impressive hail shaft, taken earlier in the day. 

An unusual site for November!

Just received information about another storm chaser who was chasing the Erie, KS storm,  Russel Parsons from Pittsburg, Kansas.  He has a unique slideshow presentation of this particular event.  Also, this event was Russel's first daytime tornado!  Please visit www.seksweather.com

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