05-07-2019 Tulia, TX Tornado - Close up in real time

This is a combination of dash, Sony and iPhone camera footage of an almost disastrous close up intercept of the May 7, 2019 Tulia, Texas tornado.

Do not attempt this. We were fortunate we weren't hit by the tornado.

*Note: The camera contrast could pick up the tornado much better than our eyes could. So a few times when it's obvious there was a tornado there, we could not see it immediately*

As we were approaching the rain wrapped core, we slid into the ditch. It took several moments to drive out of the ditch and then we broke through the rain and came across the tornado.

It was a slender pencil shaped vortex, pretty intense at ground level (sorry for the rain blurred video) and was tracking north east. As we backed up to give it some room, the 60-70mph real-flank downdraft (RFD) winds and the muddy road again contributed to make us slide into the ditch.

Shortly after this you'll notice the slender tornado appear to stop in the middle of the screen and begin widening out. Suddenly a satellite tornado appeared with only seconds warning from beside the car and passed within 50 yards in front of us. This satellite appears pretty intense, but it's worth noting the power line did not blow down.

As the satellite passes, the main vortex begins to "turn right" and head southeast growing rapidly in size before crossing a few hundred yards to our east and wedging out.

Not an experience I want to do again. Lesson learned from trying to break through a rain-wrapped core to see a tornado. The radar showed the circulation another mile or so north of us, but this tornado was closer than that at the surface.

Thanks to Eric and his 4 wheel drive Highlander I was able to drive us out of the ditch a second time and get back to a paved road.

(C) Mike Prendergast and Eric Hassfurther
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