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Adrenaline was rushing for Keith and me as we unloaded camera gear. My priority was to begin shooting the tornado as soon as possible with my 35 mm motion picture camera. Pointing my spot meter at the tornado, I received a reading of 2.8 at an ISO rating of 250. Luckily, the zoom lens I was using was fast, with a maximum aperture of 2.8. Perfect. The tornado had quickly developed into a small wedge. It was to our west-northwest and spinning hard. I shot about 200 feet of film and then grabbed my Betacam SP camcorder while Keith shot Hi8 and took stills. For us, the moment was about concentration, getting the image and doing it right. There was not much time for anything else. The tornado was moving rapidly east-southeast, at about 30 kts. in what appeared to be our general direction! Frequent cloud-to-ground lightning was hitting so close to our position that the thunder sounded like shotgun blasts with little reverb. At times, I could feel the heat of the lightning on my face. Keith and I moved about in crouched positions to reduce our risk of death by electrocution.
A citizen pulled over and asked us, "is that what I think it is?!" Keith and I replied that it was a
violent tornado. He asked if it was safe for him to continue driving west. We told him no. He said that he was on his cellular phone with a local radio station and asked if he should report it. We told him yes and asked him to tell them that it was a large and dangerous tornado.
Within five minutes of arriving at our site (appx. 8:38 p.m. CDT), the tornado had developed into
a mighty and majestic wedge back-lit by the orange light of a setting Dakota sun. The vortex
was dark gray with a lighter "skirt" rotating wildly above, highlighted with a hint of blue from the
clear sky to the south. The storm base of this relatively small supercell resembled an inverted
wedding cake and was classic in form. Surface winds were dramatically different than what we
had observed just 5 miles to the east and 10 minutes earlier. They were now strong, at about
25 kts. and gusty, from the east-southeast. It was amazing how this supercell simply wrangled
the local atmosphere. Was the storm the cause or was it the effect of this change? Looking
back, it appears that the earlier convection to the north may have put down a southeast to north
east aligned outflow boundary, increasing convergence and causing winds to back.
The tornado was now nearly a mile wide and entering Spencer to our west. Muted power
flashes were observed at the base of the funnel as electrical lines, and possibly transformers,
arced and exploded. A violent inflow jet was evident over Highway 38 as the powerful tornado
ingested black soil from a plowed field. It was apparent that the tornado was going to pass over
Highway 38 just to our west.
Since I had been driving earlier, I did not have the acute knowledge as to our position relative to
Spencer that Keith had. As team navigator, Keith knew that Spencer was possibly being devas
ated. I saw an area of trees between our position and the tornado. I suspected that the trees
represented the location of the town and that the tornado was skirting along its west side. Neither
her of us were certain, so our concern remained with the storm itself which was now south of
Highway 38 growing larger and becoming wrapped in dust. At one point, the northern edge of
the apparent vortex seemed to hover over Highway 38 for a moment while the tornado grew larger. At this point, it appeared that the dark giant was tracking east, toward us! Path analysis
would later indicate that the tornado was actually moving east-southeast as it crossed 38, 1.5
miles to our west, eventually turning southeast, south of the highway. Just to be safe, we made
a hasty departure, tossing cameras and tripods into the back of my Explorer. We headed east
down 38 glancing back at Bill and Cheryl who were heading south, crossing in front of the tornado!
Soon, hail and driving rain raked us from the north. We motioned motorists along the highway
to head east. I dialed 911 on my cell phone and reported that the tornado was tracking rapidly
toward the Interstate. Once again, I emphasized that it was a large and violent tornado. Keith
quickly reviewed the map and prepared a route that would keep us east of the tornado as we
zigzagged southeast.
By the time we reached Interstate 90 at US Highway 81, the tornado was heavily shrouded and
obscured by dust to our west-northwest. Along the way, Keith mentioned that a flash of lightning
revealed what appeared to be a small cone-shaped tornado within the dust.
We tracked the storm southeastward to Parker driving in and out of violent straight-line winds.
We avoided making the dangerous mistake of stopping downwind from trees. The storm was
racing now. Our fear was that tornadic activity might still exist deep within the dust. We weren't
taking any chances after seeing what the storm had produced earlier. I recall hearing the squeal
of my tires numerous times during the retreat.
Darkness had arrived and the storm had all but collapsed by the time we reached Interstate 29
south of Sioux Falls. Radio reports were indicating a new tornado warning to the north over the
city. We headed to Sioux Falls to take a look and received a call from Bill who was waiting for
us there with Cheryl.
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