It was the closest I”ve been to a tornado, and it was close enough. Writing now, over a month later, the experience is ancient history, but it”s worth relating even if I”m just getting around to it.\r\n\r\nI was chasing storms in Kansas on Thursday, May 22, with Bill and Tom Oosterbaan and Jason Harris. We had already intercepted our first tornadic storm of the day, watching from a distance as a beautiful multi-vortex tornado square danced with itself across the prairie. We lost that storm to one of the notorious clay roads of west Kansas, which in my opinion are worse than ice when they”re wet. By the time we caught back up with the supercell, it had gone high precipitation. We briefly viewed a large tornado approaching the west side of Oberlin, but abandoned it when wrapping rain obscured visibility and made chasing too dangerous.\r\n\r\nHeading north and then east, we targeted a second storm that was advancing from the south. Dropping down toward it, we found ourselves on a collision course with a large and intense area of radar-indicated rotation. At the very least, this storm had a strong mesocyclone, and we were heading directly for it. Our plan was to make it ahead of the storm to highway 36, a paved and dependable east-west route, but it looked to be a close shave. We were tearing along, but so was the storm, and unlike us, it wasn”t constrained by unpredictable road surfaces.\r\n\r\nWe did beat the storm to the intersection, thankfully, and headed east a little way, then stopped to get a good look. The supercell was morphing into another HP beast, but at this point, we could still make out features. Off in the distance, I spotted a small tube, and pointed it out to the guys. We watched it dance, dwindle, and dissipate–and then we spotted the real action. It was much closer: an enormous tornado, less than a mile distant, partly concealed by rain and advancing directly toward us.\r\n\r\nRetreating to the east a quarter mile or so, out of the danger zone, we watched as the condensation wedge lifted. I could now see underneath the circulation, but I felt certain it was still tornadic. Suddenly a funnel materialized on the right side of the rotating mass, broadening rapidly like a black ghost billowing up out of the prairie, and morphed into a massive cone.\r\n\r\n
(Photo courtesy of Jason Harris)\r\n\r\nI”ve read plenty of descriptions of tornado sounds, both by ordinary people caught in a tornado”s path and by fellow storm chasers. In a thread on Stormtrack several months ago, many chasers–some of whom had experienced very close encounters–agreed that they often had heard no sound at all. From a whisper to a roar and all points between: tornado noise likely depends on a number of things, ranging from location relative to the tornado, to surface features the winds are interacting with, and no doubt to other factors I”m unaware of.\r\n\r\nThis tornado was silent as it advanced. No roar, no freight train noise, no waterfall sound, nothing other than the hiss of inflow winds around us rushing over the prairie grass.\r\n\r\nBut as the funnel crossed the road within a quarter-mile from us, moving at a rapid clip, suddenly the sound came–a massive WHHOOOOOSSSSHHHHHHH!!!!! Then the rear flank downdraft hit, along with drenching rain wrapping into the circulation and cloaking the tornado from view.\r\n\r\nWe headed east through the wind and wet, gabbling excitedly, working off the adrenaline and feeling a certain sense of disbelief. It had been a close encounter. A good number of chasers have been closer to a tornado, but we were close enough to satisfy me. I wouldn”t have wanted to be any closer–at least, not in a high-precipitation supercell where more may be happening with the parent circulation than readily meets the eye.\r\n\r\nAll in all, an amazing experience. Can”t wait to do it again.
