The Attica Kansas Supercell
and Tornado - Page 2

All images and text
© copyright Gene Moore

The Attica tornado as it moved about a mile north-northeast of town. It continued to fan out a large red spray of dirt at the base. Very large hail fell sporadically a few minutes before this shot but very little precipitation fell from the main updraft of the storm. Also, the lightning was absent from the base of the storm, but thunder could be heard off to the northeast in the area of heavy rain and hail.

The south storm at bottom of the image is the Attica supercell just before the tornado developed. At this time it was southwest of town and looked like a big cloud with a concentric base. There was no classic wall cloud, although the back of the cell did lower somewhat as seen in the third photograph on page one. Also, it never developed a classic hook as seen from Enid, Oklahoma (VNX) radar which had an unobstructed view into the circulation on the south side. That came about 30 minutes later as the circulation became rain wrapped when it approached the Harper, Anthony area.

Wide angle of the tornado and dissipating supercell as dry air ate through the back of the storm revealing the height of the funnel above cloud base.

In this shot the tornado is becoming unstable and beginning to show signs of dissipation. It still lofted a large cloud of dirt into the air as it moved across plowed fields.

Most of the condensation funnel is gone in this shot, the end came very quickly when it roped out. The dust circulation persisted for a few more minutes and slowly spun down. While this tornado had been in progress a new set of convective towers was beginning to rotate a few miles east.

Large hailstones were using us for target practice. This one measured 3 1/2 inches in length. We saw stones much larger, about 4 1/2 inches in diameter. One just missed Mike's head and left a big dent in the top of my driver's side door. It splattered large chunks of ice through the vehicle, one smacking me as I reloaded a camera.