AUGUST 18, 2005 SOUTHERN WI

Chase Accounts

AUGUST 18, 2005 SOUTHERN WI

Scott Kampas and I started the day in Peoria, IL and decided to head north into Northern IL because of an outflow boundary that was across the area. We left Peoria around 3:40 and went North on I-39. When we caught up to the outflow boundary along the I-88 corridor, the cumulus associated with the outflow boundary looked like crap and was decreasing in area coverage so we decided to head north into southern WI where a tornado watch was in effect and would put us closer to the surface low that was moving across the area. We were well aware of the tornadic supercell that was occurring to the NW of the Madison, WI area and decided to head for it. While on route to intercept this cell NW of Madison, another cell quickly developed off to the SW of Madison. This cell would eventually become the supercell that produced the Stoughton, WI tornado. As soon as I started to see rotation on radar to the cell off to the SW of Madison, we quickly decided that we would try to intercept it to the SE of Madison near the I-39 corridor in SE Dane county. We got off at exit 156 and could make out the rain free base and a wall cloud to our WNW. We decided to head WNW in order to get a better view. We ended up going as far North as a small town called Utica, however numerous trees were in the view of the approaching wall cloud, so se decided to head south out of town. It was about this time that Darin Kaiser, who decided to follow us when he got off work from Galesburg, IL called us and said that a tornado was on the ground to his NW and that he was at exit 156 on I-39. We could not see the tornado as once again numerous trees were in the way to our West. We finally got an area of clearing and could easily see the approaching tornado from the West behind a row of trees. We estimated the tornado to be 2 miles from us. We sat there for a little while before continuing south until we found a better viewing area of the tornado. We finally found a bean field and decided to stop and film. We let the tornado get roughly 1/2 mile from us before we moved again off to the ESE and ended up on route 73. In order to do this, we had to go back north a little and then drop back down South. While on route 73, the tornado suddenly appeared behind some hills and tress and it got within 1/4 to 1/3 mile of us. The outer edges of some debris almost hit the car. We continued South until we decided to go East on Craig Road. We let the tornado pass to our north by roughly 3/4 mile. the tornado at this stage was beginning to dissipate rapidly. There was no condensation funnel associated with it any more, but at times a few small vortices at ground level. We continued going East while a new wall cloud quickly developed off to the ESE of the now dissipated tornado. While we were moving East into Western Jefferson county, I noticed another tornado to our NW not associated with the old wall cloud. This tornado was roughly 3 miles away and rain wrapped but still visible. This tornado was actually associated with another cell that merged with our storm. We watched this tornado for several minutes before it become so rain wrapped that we could not see it. We then decided to go East on Route 106 to get in position for our new developing wall cloud that was really beginning to wrap up nicely. Just to the North of Lake Koshkonong, we finally got a decent view of the now rapidly rotating wall cloud . It was not too much longer before a tornado developed under it. We watched it for several minutes until it lifted before heading East on 106 again towards Fort Atkinson while getting slammed with nearly 55 mph rfd winds. About two miles West of town, I noticed another tornado through the trees 2 miles to our south, so we tried to get a better view of it, but it was impossible through the tress. We ended up going back home once we were in Fort Atkinson, because it was getting dark and because of the storm now being hpish in nature, we would have a hard time seeing any more tornadoes unless we were out in front of the storm. Me and Scott Kampas saw 4 tornadoes on this date. This ended up being the most tornadoes ever being recorded in a day in WI (27). Sadly, we did not learn until we got back home that the large tornado that we captured killed 1 person and injured dozens near Stoughton.