ESTESBOG

Summer weather on the high plains can accurately be described as long periods of boring interspersed with brief periods of potentially fatal. At about 4 p.m. on August 16th I stepped out of my laboartory in Brush, Colorado to see this tornado stretching across the sky directly to the south as a thunderstorm began to graze by the eastern edge of the town. It was too far away for me to see the base and know whether or not it was touching the ground. Later we learned that a barn about ten miles to the south was turned into kindling and scattered over a mile-long stretch of prairie. A valuable stallion in the barn was injured so badly it had to be put down.

A twister of this type is sometimes called a “rope tornado.” I’ve seen a bunch of ropey funnel clouds, but never one that descended all the way to the ground. I ran to my car, got out my camera and snapped a few shots. An hour later on my home computer I sent the shot included here to the Denver NBC affiliate, KUSA-TV, Channel 9. Weather forecaster Kathy Sabine ran the shot 4 times between 5P.M. and 10:30. The next morning John LaPorte of the Fort Morgan Times called to say he’d seen the shot and asked if I’d share. It spanned the upper front page of Tuesday afternoon’s edition. http://www.fortmorgantimes.com/ci_15804119?IADID=Search-www.fortmorgantimes.com-www.fortmorgantimes.com