March 7th, 2009 - Tornado near Hutchinson, KS. Invisible Funnel!

March 7th, 2009 - Our chase team left early enough to catch the action in Central Kansas and it was well rewarded! We returned from this chase with video of a rare and beautiful tornado with a funnel lacking condensation (making it "invisible"!). You can see sustained rotation in the dirt/dust at the surface as well as some rotation in the wall cloud. This is not a "gustnado" as some have labeled it, but is indeed a sustained tornadic vortex stretching downward from the mesocyclone! We continued to chase this same cell which went through several stages of intensification/disorganization before we ended up with a flat tire and had to call it a night (see "part II for that!) Video Credit: Nick Engerer, Owen Shieh, Other members of this chase team were Amy Harless and Richard Lam.

Check out Part II:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=431sguyZNnk

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Tornado
• Tornadoes
• Twister
• Funnel
• Supercell
• Mesocyclone
• Hutchinson
• Kansas
• Nick
• Engerer
• Storm
• Chaser
• Chasing
• Chasers

[softballerchick08]

hey, i really like the idea of storm chasing and really want to get into it. what do you have to do to be a storm chaser? ill be graduating next year so i hope this is something that i can do.

and btw sweet video. we just had a small thunderstorm pass through a few minutes ago..but it was kinda boring lol.

[mesocyclogenesis]

get a good car, get a good chase partner, learn about supercells and tornadoes and drive to the plains during may, haha

[majinbulgeta]

I thought it was a gustnado by looking at it. cool encounter

[mesocyclogenesis]

You can see distinct "fingers" of rotation (cite 2:20-2:33 in video) hanging down from the wall cloud which is indicative of the vortex being linked to the mesocyclone. I would never call it a tornado unless I had evidence to, one of my pet peeves is people labeling gustnado events as tornadoes.

[AgentDGW]

at 1:04 did you not see that tornado?

[tornadomanatwork]

always a complaner ..

[wolf6669]

THAT'S RLLY COOL

[brando5999]

i live in hutchinson and my baseball team were playing a game on the sw corner of hutch..then we looked to the west and saw that wall cloud and the sirens were going off...that was crazy

[softballerchick08]

um ok. lol

[Janetjacksongurl]

Invible tornadoes in something I hope to never encounter. Some people can't see the rotationand think it's just a thunderstorm and end up driving into it :(