Dominator going by, wedge right there, ultra wide angle shot again.

Video again, same location. The motion was simply frightening really. I am not sure if that is rain right there under the edge of the collar cloud or actually cloud vapor.

Same time but with wide angle still. You can see just how far away that ultra wide view makes things. The very short part on video I pan over there right now is sick how fast things were spinning. Not sure why I went back to the highway with the video there. Drives me nuts now and each time I see it I head slap myself. I was pretty caught up with the dirt racing across the road I guess. That and the spin above me. I don't even remember noticing how close the wedge was or how intense it was.

Again the difference between video camera view and an ultra wide angle view on the still camera. The edge of the violent tornado is probably about a block down that gravel road.

Too bad the contrast sucks now. I actually wish I had stopped with stills and shot video so I could concentrate on cleaning the water off it. Contrast was so bad cause the collar cloud was so low it wasn't letting any light in there.

It was now doing stuff like the back side of the Andover KS tornado from 91. Lifting intense vortices. It is quite interesting to note intensity levels though. It now looked not so intense but yet intense. It did this later. Like rfd coming down just right and making the thing start spinning violently. I couldn't leave this location right away because the inside of my windshield was now soaked. It was seriously as wet as if it was on the outside in rain. I turned the wipers on and was like, ah crap. Then grabbed a sweat shirt from the back and tried to clean an area off so I could go. I also had to try and get the camera a bit less drenched too.

Going east now towards Bowdle. Insane structure.

Violent collar cloud motions again and surely violence in the wedge. It was rated EF4 without going through much of anything, thankfully just missing Bowdle to the north. Bowdle would probably be another Spencer SD had this gone just 2 miles further south.

Beast of a storm

I'm now just north of Bowdle. Massive wedge moving east.

When I stopped here there were tons of cars right on that hill. My nerves were a little shot now, from the close passing just a few short minutes ago. I was ready to get close again but not if I had to rely on chasers getting out of the way. All the cars I saw there, with this closing in, I said screw that and backed in here. At around 18 seconds into this clip of Jason Montano's you can see my black Mustang on the left: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztQ6FrM5g3c I didn't exactly feel like going up on that hill then, to hopefully have a spot to stop. I saw this open spot and just backed in and shot from there. I wish I would have driven up there. 1 block makes a massive difference. It was still amazing here though lol. But just look at his video and then this wide angle shot above. See just how misleading ultra wide is lol. Sure does capture it all though.

Violent wedge can be seen just left of that pole, as strong wrapping rain bands plow by.

The end of the world right down the road. Just look how low the stuff is ahead of it pulling back west into the black hole. A cop was blocking the road up there, so it's not like one could have gotten much closer at first anyway. Then again I doubt he'd come after you at the time.

A not so hot vid capture, but it shows the deal better.

I was surprised just how long it ended up taking to cross the road. I have no clue why I didn't think to try and drive up there now. I have a problem of being blind in thinking ahead so much. Had the thought crossed my mind I'd have driven right up there to the thing now. And that is my problem, it honestly doesn't at the most obvious times! I'm thinking, dry crap off again, including the inside of my windshield again and drop back south to go east and catch up with things. Often the first tornado is left behind like this, as the storm reorganizes further east. Soon as I got east of the storm again, shortly after this, it started to produce another good tornado. I then saw a couple more and also got northeast of the structure north of Roscoe SD. I let it pass JUST south of me there, hoping for violent hail, but that was a let down.

Got this intense mammatus display south of Aberdeen a ways. Some of the mammatus had mammatus lol. Seriously, look at the one towards the right.

One of my favorite storm things to see.     After I'd chased for several years I realized one thing about why I chase. I would often relate why I chase to the Columbus NE 1998 supercell and tornado shot by a "crazy" farmer. It is the definition of a storm going crazy. Crazy structure and extreme tornado, whatever extreme really means. I mean you see enough of certain structures that seeing them again doesn't do much after a while. Especially if you had to drive far to do so. I can enjoy most anything from home. But anyway, that deal in a nutshell explains why I chase. I want to be there when something like that happens. I'll enjoy other crazy things thoroughly as they come, and wish I'd stayed home on most other typical things. But it's just that kind of stuff that I want to be there when it happens.