Tornado vs barn... Before and after, and more video

 

I'm posting more pictures and video grabs of the "exploding barn" video as one viewer called it.

These pictures are from the Cherokee tornado on April 14, 2012 in northwest Oklahoma. You may have seen the video clips at the bottom of this page on various national media outlets. The last video shows the barn destruction.

Several of my friends called me "crazy" (and other things...)  for shooting the video, but we were quite safe actually. We were able to discern both tornadoes and knew what they were doing. We were safely tucked between them!

You will notice that when you zoom in to look inside the tornado that the funnel is barely visible. Typical of most tornadoes, especially weak tornadoes, most of the debris blows northward as the strongest wind in a tornado (assuming a simple, single vortex and SW to NE storm movement) occurs on the south and east side of the tornado. The relatively small and weak tornado pictured here is likely of EF-1 intensity.

Enjoy the pics and video below.  George

   

(ABOVE: Shawn Brett put together this before and after pic of the barn.
BELOW: Our chase position and the tornado's path.)

Below are the "tornado vs barn" pics in chronological order:

 

   

 

(ABOVE: dual tornadoes. The tornado on the left is the the same tornado picture above which hits the barn. You can tell the tornado is moving to our left-- that's how we knew it would easily miss our location.  BELOW: a one-minute clip of tornado vs barn)