My drone was called to service this past Monday to assist the North Indiana NWS (KIWX) in tornado damage assesment in Delaware, Blackford, Jay Counties, IN.
The short story. I went chasing on Sunday, and we were in fact in Elwood IN on this storm Sunday afternoon when the wall cloud was forming with inflow obvious. Elwood was getting some substantial flooding and we did not want to go back thru the city. Chasing storms in the midwest can be really challenging espicially with rain wrapped storms. So we went west, and positioned ourselves for a line of stores coming in across the IL/IN border. We were near Sheridan. Within 30 second of getting into postion, a rain wrapped tornado dropped down right on us. There are many doubters, even the NWS Indy said it was straight light winds based on the the video we posted. We were there, we know! Dr Greg Forbes of the Weather Channel confirmed it, and we have velocity images from Fox 59 and WTHR showing rotation.
The survey was an awesome experience, bringing my two passions together. They expected it to be a long track tornado (it was, thirty nine miles, including Mercer County OH) so we didn't linger long in each stop. Before we got started they took a shot of my license, my businss card, drone, and registration number and we were ready to roll. At their request, it went up when they requested since we had a lot of country roads to cover. I totally understood since I was also under a time restraint as I was also requested in Ohio. I was able to get some incredible shots, including a few which indicated the possibilty this was a tornado with multiple vortices.
We were able to hear the stories of those who survived, it is truly amazing there were no lives lots, and that last I heard there were only three minor injuries in Jay County
Requested height was 100-125, max was 200 ft. These are the unedited as they needed them at the moment
The short story. I went chasing on Sunday, and we were in fact in Elwood IN on this storm Sunday afternoon when the wall cloud was forming with inflow obvious. Elwood was getting some substantial flooding and we did not want to go back thru the city. Chasing storms in the midwest can be really challenging espicially with rain wrapped storms. So we went west, and positioned ourselves for a line of stores coming in across the IL/IN border. We were near Sheridan. Within 30 second of getting into postion, a rain wrapped tornado dropped down right on us. There are many doubters, even the NWS Indy said it was straight light winds based on the the video we posted. We were there, we know! Dr Greg Forbes of the Weather Channel confirmed it, and we have velocity images from Fox 59 and WTHR showing rotation.
The survey was an awesome experience, bringing my two passions together. They expected it to be a long track tornado (it was, thirty nine miles, including Mercer County OH) so we didn't linger long in each stop. Before we got started they took a shot of my license, my businss card, drone, and registration number and we were ready to roll. At their request, it went up when they requested since we had a lot of country roads to cover. I totally understood since I was also under a time restraint as I was also requested in Ohio. I was able to get some incredible shots, including a few which indicated the possibilty this was a tornado with multiple vortices.
We were able to hear the stories of those who survived, it is truly amazing there were no lives lots, and that last I heard there were only three minor injuries in Jay County
Requested height was 100-125, max was 200 ft. These are the unedited as they needed them at the moment
