Tornado photos and weather information for 21 Jul 2000

In the Clouds Photography

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Gallery - 21 Jul 2000

For two days prior, eastern Colorado was the target for tornadic storms to develop. Storms that occurred on Wed and Thurs did not produce the tornados that some expected which may have been due to the lack of sufficient shear since the surface winds were relatively light and variable. At 9 AM Fri, however, I noted easterly winds around 10 to 15 knots at Akron, CO. With this improvement in the data, I decided it was time I chased.

I left work around 2 PM and made arrangements to pick up a pro photographer in Boulder, Allen Birnbach, who wanted to photo a tornado. We went up I25 to CO14 to intercept storms rolling south from the Cheyenne ridge. We watched as a couple of weak cells moved south directly toward us. We thought they would intensify as they moved south but instead they practically evaporated in front of our eyes in 10-15 minutes. Then, a new updraft formed in situ just north of Hwy 14 near Briggsdale and sent anvil streaming over our heads. About this time another updraft formed well southeast of us perhaps near Akron. That one looked great for a time and we decided to move to a middle position on Hwy 52 between Ft. Morgan and Hwy 14 — this gave us the choice to jump east to Akron or stay with the original storm.

Tornado touchdown

Going south to Ft. Morgan, we noticed the eastern updraft was just pulsing while the western one (Weld County) was getting a nicer base. The base continued to improve so we stuck with it. We thought it was moving SE but in retrospect I think it moved due south. We took Morgan County Rd W west paralleling the Platte River and US34 and a few minutes later a 30 second dust swirl occurred. Precipitation was beginning overhead, east, and northeast but not southeast through northwest. We had 15 knots of easterly winds. A tornado warning was issued on the mesocyclone in front of us (west) and I called the NWS office in Boulder to tell them we had good eyes on it from 5-10 miles east of it. While on the phone a new dust whirl started, slowly grew and widened and reached half-way to cloud base with no apparent funnel above. The mesocyclone had quite a good shape but we could not discern a funnel, perhaps just a nipple.

During the next 60 seconds, I stayed on the phone telling the NWS that we had an intensifying tornado (this was 6:02 PM MDT). The tornado continued to lengthen as a dust column connected fully to cloud base and stayed rather constant for 5 or so minutes. Then the dust dispersed somewhat as if the tornado was dying but after a 60-120 second gap, a nice condensation funnel appeared. The funnel extended into the residual dust/debris and stirred things up again with a more concentrated dust column obscuring the condensation funnel. This form lasted until about 6:19 when everything slowly dissipated.

We then drove south on Hwy 52 from Wiggins to get closer to the storm updraft in case it decided to produce another tornado. Instead, the storm was lifting and dying and we watched as mushball hail (many around 1 to 1.5") fell hundreds of feet and smashed onto pavement like a snowball! Snowballs falling from the sky were fun to watch. Rotation was still found in cloud base and we were very close looking nearly straight up. The storm fizzled and merged with another after 6:30 so we broke things off around 7:15 on the Morgan/Adams county border where I shot a series of mammatus photos.

In the Clouds Photography

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Gallery - 21 Jul 2000

Tornado touchdown

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In the Clouds Photography

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Gallery - 21 Jul 2000

Tornado touchdown

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