OLD CHASE PHOTOS
Danni and I caught this monster moving southeast from DIA, taken a few miles south of Bennett.
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The next two shots are from the first storm pictured. We followed the cell south and took these on the Arapahoe / Elbert County line. We had a very difficult time staying ahead of the hail core which finally caught us in Elizabeth. This cell became Tornado Warned in El Paso County with no confirmed touch down.
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Another chase day in 2005, this storm was moving east from Colorado Springs around sunset. Danni, Joe and I had been chasing a Tornado Warned cell off the Palmer Divide. Even though there were reports of something on the ground in the Yoder area we called off the chase when the cell became HP.
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This was taken in August of 2004 in rural Elbert County near Bijou. There was a 5% Tornado Risk this particular day with a Denver Cyclone in place. We saw our first funnel about 7 miles east of Kiowa which was very high based and never touched down. While we were watching the first cell a second one blew up to our north with an explosive updraft. We continued east on Highway 86 to CR125 and headed north. We stopped and watched for only a few minutes before Joe noticed a debris cloud shortly followed by a landspout.
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Another shot of the same landspout which had lifted. The rotation really tightened up and more of a wall cloud formed. The landspout/funnel was persistent for 10-15 minutes and caused no damage.
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This is the same landspout with a nice looking condensation funnel, with binoculars the debris cloud looked quite violent... maybe even F-1. Elbert County Road 125 has became a favorite spot for us. On May 10, 2004 Joe and I experienced a cyclical tornadic cell which produced *7* tornadoes between Simla and Cedar Point over a two hour period. Tornado #2 (an F-3) destroyed a homestead just to the north of Highway 86 and CR125 and Tornado #3 touched down just east of the intersection. Joe and I are convinced that the Palmer Divide has a drastic effect on severe thunderstorms.
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This is a horrible photo of the second landspout we saw off of CR125. I took this photo while looking for road options and the Jeep being pelted with golfball to softball sized hail which broke the windshield only a few minutes after this photo was taken. Danni was in the back seat and got video of the window breaking, that footage can be seen in the highlight video.
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