Destructive Iowa Tornadoes

What can I say. It was an amazing chase, and my first in Iowa! Unfortunately, several towns in Iowa took severe damage. It looks like several of the tornadoes were EF-3 strength. Ill let the images do the talking...

The Mapleton, IA tornado viewed from the south. This tornado destroyed more than 60% of the town. Fortunately no one was killed, despite several injuries. We had no idea the tornado was impacting the town at that time.


Tornado near Arthur, IA, seen from highway 20.


EF-2 damage in the town of Early, IA.

Recent Work

Sorry for the lack of updates. Here is a few recent frames. Look for more activity during the Spring!

Tex's Saddle Shop

One of many hidden treasures in Santa Rosa, NM. Pictured here is Olen Taylor, a legally blind saddle-maker and painter. This guy is going to be famous when he is finally discovered.

8/16/10 Deer Trail and Brush Colorado Tornadoes!

Holy Cow! What a year for tornadoes in Colorado.I Chased with Mark Farnik and Ben Toms today and we scored four tornadoes! Two near Deer Trail and two more 70 miles North, on the South side of Brush. We had a really nice boundary to play with and storms had a chance to produce only a few tornadoes before moving off the NE to SW oriented boundary. Very photogenic tornadoes!

Tornado near Gary Colorado, somewhere South of Brush

Possible tornado near Deer Trail

Debris from a tornado near Gary

Funnel aloft near Gary

June 10th Deer Trail Colorado Tornadoes

What an amazing day! Colorado has had a fantastic year for tornadoes. This more than made up for missing the Campo Tornadoes. After a series of cell mergers and interactions, this storm anchored on the southern end of the chain of supercells and spun like a top, dropping 3ish tornadoes.

I have seen tons of supercells but nothing compares to this symmetry! Tornado #1 ongoing.

Looks like we had a weak satellite circulation associated with Tornado #2

Tornado #2 looking epic.

June 21st Weak Tornado Near Yuma Colorado

Sorry for the lack of updates. Many more will be posted in the coming days. Had a solo chase on June 21st. I left late and core punched, emerging under the rain free base East of Brush. This brief tornado never fully condensed but I was able to confirm rotation at the cloudbase and on the ground. Yuma got smashed with baseball sized hail shortly after this. I called it a day and went back west to witness an awesome rainbow and sunlit towers.