Smith Family Weblog

When the tornado sirens went off in town yesterday, there was blue sky overhead.

Bryan was out picking up pizza for the girls and the sitter that was about to arrive, and I was upstairs getting ready. I herded the girls into the basement and turned on the TV. In addition to a perfect hook echo at the bottom corner of the storm over Topeka, there was radar-indicated rotation, which is enough to trigger a tornado warning.

The storm was directly to our west by about 20 miles, and it was moving northeast. We weren’t in the path, but judging by the radar images and the news reports, we thought we’d have a good chance of seeing the storm at a safe distance.

After the girls were settled in with the sitter, Bryan and I headed out to the northwest corner of town. There were approximately 40 cars parked on the Highway 10 overpass, and we stopped there to watch. I’d say we were at least 10 miles from the wall cloud, and again, we were not in any danger at all given the distance and the path of the storm.

This is among the first photos I took, and in it, you can see the funnel cloud directly below the wall cloud. Given our distance, it’s a bit difficult to spot, but it’s roughly two-thirds of the way between the third and fourth power poles as you look from the left.

As I mentioned, we were in good company. We even ran into a cameraman I work with quite a bit; he was filming for our local TV station. Looking north in this photo—the storm is to our left in the photo, out of frame.

And to the southwest:

The view to the east was also impressive. The first time I saw cloud formations like this, I was with Grandpa Dankleff, who said they indicated instability in the atmosphere.

The funnel didn’t last long, but the wall cloud remained intact. We moved about two miles north on Highway 10, which is where we shot these photos.

As we watched, we were listening to the local radio station. People were calling in to report two funnel clouds, but I’m inclined to think these were just low-hanging scud clouds.

We moved a bit to the north and a couple miles to the east, stopping a a high point above a gorgeous field. Looking north:

Looking west. Again, we had quite a bit of company.

We had a perfect view of the spectacular wall cloud, with scud clouds underneath.

We watched until the wall cloud began to collapse.

This was my tenth tornado/funnel cloud sighting, and my very first one in Kansas. Having Bryan with me was probably a good thing; he ensured we stayed at a safe distance, which I’m hoping will appease the moms.

All in all, a gorgeous storm, and thankfully, one that was not as destructive as it could have been.