From Mike Nelson's 7 Weather Blog

February 24, 2007 - Local Storm Chasers Bag First Tornado Of Season

Local storm chasers Verne Carlson, Michael Carlson and Tony Laubach saw their first tornado of the 2007 chase season on Friday.


In anticipation of strong developing low pressure on the central plains, they left Denver Thursday afternoon for Garden City, Kansas.

After analyzing data on Friday, they decided to target western Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle for severe thunderstorm development.

A dryline setup Friday afternoon between Amarillo and Shamrock in the Texas panhandle, so the storm chasers made their way west along Interstate 40 to the small town of McLean.

A dryline is the boundary between moist air and dry air, which serves as a focal point for thunderstorm development.

By the afternoon hours, three thunderstorm cells fired up and moved north along the dryline. The first storm was rather weak, but the second storm showed signs of rotation.

As the rotation grew stronger, a funnel cloud dropped from the base of the storm. The funnel soon took on the classic cone shape and dropped to the ground, forming a tornado.

The tornado stayed on the ground about 5 minutes near the town of McLean, Texas. You can see a picture of the twister by clicking here.

Now Tony, Verne and Michael are driving through 60 mph wind gusts from the departing storm as they make their way home to Colorado.