Date: 26 August 2002

Location: Crescent Lake National Wildlife Refuge, NE

Chase Partner: Alone

   Summary:  Departed Denver at 1315 MDT.  Storms were firing early afternoon near the South Dakota/ Nebraska border heading SSE.  From Ovid, CO I headed N to Oshkosh, NE where there was a large storm to the north coming my way.   I headed up HWY 27 which eventually turned into more of a tow-track type of road instead of a highway.   At Crescent Lake NWR (1800 MDT) there was a large shelf cloud and a HP beast of a storm.   It had a severe T storm warning on it for sometime as it approached my location.    I noticed a cloud that resembled a truncated cone tornado.   As I paid more attention to it there was rotation, so it was definitely a funnel cloud.   Whether or not it was in contact with the ground I don't know?   It roped out after about 3 minutes or so.   If I was a betting man, I would say that it was a tornado.   The point where it would have been in contact with the ground was on the other side of a small hill in the distance.  Let storm chase me til around 2100 then headed back for home.

 

Aug02-NE2.jpg (145924 bytes) HP Storm N of Crescent Lake

Aug02-CrescentLk2a.jpg (167823 bytes)

Aug02-CrescentLk1a.jpg (155477 bytes)

Aug02-CrescentLkTor3-a.jpg (161131 bytes) Look to the lower right and you can see the possible tornado.

Aug02-CrescentLkTor2a.jpg (153207 bytes) Truncated Cone Tornado?

Aug02-CrescentLkRope-a.jpg (160350 bytes) Roping out

Aug02NE-CG1a.jpg (176344 bytes) CG later that evening near the CO/NE border.

 

All Photos Copyright (C) 2002 Eric Treece