June 1st, 1999

As the video shows, we were facing west at the approaching storm. We inched west as the line approached and then punched south out ahead of the line as we kept noticing SLC's (Scary Looking Clouds) toward the southwest and the lightning picking up. Again we were without radar and timely reports from the National Weather Service so it was all eyes. We finally got word of a tornado warning for the area we were in so we parked off a road just off I 39 and noticed an interesting feature just west of us.

Definitely a lowering. Could be a tornado? Couldn't tell since visibility was so poor. HOWEVER that all changed when a flash of lightning lit up a clear small cone tornado about a mile or two to the west and moving closer. I was still a rookie and knew I was in trouble. I didn't freak out though,  I stayed calm and held the camera as we bailed east on that county road and took shelter behind a large machine shed. It was the only shelter we could find and we thought we would ride it out there for better or for worse. Now looking back at this I have to say what we did was incredibly stupid and am absolutely at fault for biting more than we could chew with a wrapped up embedded HP supercell. However this was a MAJOR learning experience for me as it taught me that tornadoes can form on the front of the line and not the southwest corner of a supercell. Also it showed that you wont always have that great picturesque tornado from 10 miles away.