Chase Log: May 12th, 2004 -- Tornadoes in and near Attica
We moved east on Highway 160 towards the town of Attica, at which time we dropped a little south. A lot of dust and dirt was being kicked up by the impressive RFD winds at this time. Cloud-base rotation was also increasing quite dramatically. Our second tornado of the day formed as a dust/dirt swirl at the surface, and lasted for about one minute.
After this tornado dissapated, there was a rapid and very intense increase in cloud-base rotation. We scooted north to get back on Hwy 160 and moved to the east side of Attica. At this time, there were two very nice areas of rotation, one being directly in front of us, and the other being to our south. Oh yeah, there was also tennis-ball sized hail falling. The video still below was taken several minutes after we grabbed the stone:
Suddenly, the third tornado formed to the south of us, beneath of very large bowl-shaped funnel. This tornado gradually intensified as the funnel lowered. Seeing that the tornado was both getting larger and not moving left or right, we realized it was heading straight towards us! We drove west on Highway 160 a few thousand feet and dropped south on a road on the very east side of Attica. By now, the tornado was quite large and very dusty! We shift positions one more time, at which time we were able to capture some incredible rotation of the tornado at the ground! Unfortunately, we did get video of a house, which was to our southeast when we were previously on Hwy 160, being hit by the tornado. In fact, the roof was lifted in one piece from this house. As the tornado continue northward, we remained in our position, which was about 1000 feet west of the tornado:
***VIDEO of tornado in Attica (~5mb)***
We got back on Hwy 160, where we were able to see the tornado roping out:
As the tornado disappated and the dust settled (literally), we were able to make it through the damage path on Hwy 160 before it was shut down. The house we had seen earlier was now missing a roof and several outside walls:
As we were driving out of Attica, we saw another dusty tornado form on the new mesocyclone, which was southeast of the occluding meso that had just produced the Attica tornado:
