2013
2013 started with a bang as
I saw my first tornado exactly one hour and twelve minutes after the
wheels of my jet hit the ground, and I saw three more before the tour
even started. It was a busy tour with only one down day out of the ten,
some of the best storm structure I've ever seen in Nebraska and South
Dakota, and the awesome hour-long Bennington, KS tornado. The year wasn't without it's share of destruction unfortunately. We were there for the May 20th Moore tornado, driving through one end of the damage path that night after intentionally avoiding chasing the storm since if it produced it would obviously do so in the city, and again the following day through the heart of the damage path in downtown Moore. Departure day was also horrible, as it was the day of the El Reno tornado and the death of Tim Samaras, one of the greats in the storm chasing world. A really fun tour (and pre-tour)! For the tour, 2 tornadoes and a ton of great structure on storms through Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Kansas, plus 4 more tornadoes for me on my arrival day and the tour’s arrival day. On the tour, we chased 9 out of the 10 days with only one of them being an overall bust (Day 1 east of Dallas), and the other off day was a positioning day, so there was really no downtime at all. This was by far the least mileage I’ve covered on a 10 day tour at 4311 as they are almost always over 5000 miles. Overall, of the 12 days I chased, 7 were moderate threat days, a very active period in what was supposedly one of the least active years of all time! 2013 Photo Album: Video: Chase Day Pages: May 19th, 2013: Edmond and Shawnee, OK tornadic supercells. May 20th, 2013: Devastating Moore, OK tornado May 25th, 2013: Spectacular Sturgis, SD supercells. Great structure! May 26th, 2013: Magnificent electrified Arcadia, NE supercell. May 28th, 2013: Hour-long Bennington, KS EF-4 tornado. |
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All pictures (C) Richard Hamel 2017.