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Headline : BRITISH couple chase storms across America and catch a TORNADO!
Caption : ***Video time-lapse available. Contact jon.gillespie@wenn.com***

BRITISH couple chase storms across America and catch a TORNADO!

Renowned U.K. Landscape photographer and storm chaser, John Finney and his partner Ashleigh Parker have recently returned from a whirlwind trip to the United States, doing what they love best – chasing extreme weather! The couple spent over a week crossing from state-to-state in turbulent weather trying to capture the perfect storm on camera.

Finney said…

‘’We started our journey in Denver, Colorado and teamed up with a British storm-chasing company Weather Holidays. We chased storms across the Mid-west of America driving more than 4500 miles across 8 states in 10 days’’.

‘’On day two we chased in central Kansas because the National Weather Service had issued a 5% tornado risk. The atmosphere looked explosive with towers of climbing Cumulonimbus clouds all around. We were now right inside the risk area with an incoming warm front, it wasn't too long before a storm anchored onto the warm front and quickly turned into a supercell, and with the arrival of a low-level jet stream, this soon turned into an extremely dangerous storm’’

‘’The Storm was now tornado warned and positive lightning bolts were landing all around us, the storm's massive rotating wall cloud was in front of us and now the nearest town had its tornado sirens blaring away’’

‘’The rotation of the wall cloud was now very strong and a wedge-shaped Tornado touched down a couple of miles away in front of us. At first, the tornado was partially rain-wrapped so it wasn't very obvious but as the tornado got closer it came out of the rain and turned shape into a massive stovepipe tornado. But with the tornado moving east south-east towards us and the storm's mesocyclone moving away, it wasn't long before the tornado turned into the roped-out stage and then vanished. We then chased this supercell northwest. This Supercell storm rode the warm front until late evening dropping 6 tornadoes in total while displaying amazing cloud structure.

Now safely back home in the U.K., John and Ashleigh have shared their images with WENN. Needless to say we’re ‘’blown away’’ by these stunning pictures.


IN PICTURE: A large landspout tornado can be seen on the edge of this storm with lightning, Taken at sunset near the town of Benkelman, Nebraska.
A landspout tornado is slightly different from a normal tornado because it starts from the ground up and is not associated with a rotating mesocyclone storm.
PersonInImage : Landspout tornado and Lightning,Benkelman,Nebraska