Wilson Lake, KS

On May 7, 1993 a significant outbreak of severe weather occurred, with a line of storms stretching from nearly the Canadian border to south Texas. Many tornadic storms formed, one of which we found near Wilson Lake, KS. There was one fatality, at Wilson Lake; fortunately the tornado was mostly over open country, since it was down for a very long time. "We" included myself, Bruce D. Lee and Gwen Pech. The images below are in the order they were shot. Gene Moore was also on this storm.


The first touchdown.
Tornado #2. No freight train nearby..

Low contrast; large tornado?
Rear flank downdraft...

Tornado becoming apparent.
View from Wilson Lake.

Large tornado in background, small one in foreground.

Finally stopped for some pictures.
Rolling again.

Start of multiple vortex tornado.
Solidly to ground again.

Near decay.

Radar images

We are grateful to the National Weather Service in Wichita, KS, for providing these reflectivity and velocity pictures. The Weather Service had warnings on this storm from the very beginning.

22:35 0.5 deg. reflectivity.
23:04 0.5 deg. reflectivity.

22:35 1.5 deg. velocity.
23:04 0.5 deg. velocity.

23:15 reflectivity, 0.5-3.4 deg.
23:15 velocity, 0.5-3.4 deg.

All non-radar photographs copyrighted by Brian F. Jewett | bjewett@ncsa.uiuc.edu | homepage