Again what a day. Hard to put into words really. Every storm that we chased had a tornado with it, but also a sting in the tail because they became imbedded within the storm itself. The day started safely, well apart from Paul falling into a ditch full of cactus. He is still pulling them out of his arms & hands.

The first cell we followed had a tornado which became rainwrapped and we couldn't see it. So we drove into the storm to see if we could find it. We drove under the meso and there to our right was a large multi vortex tornado. We set off after it. As we watched followed and filmed the road turned to slush and we all got ditched, yes all, even Chris the ITV camera man. We sat there watching the first tornado move away north, it became a mile wide. However we had other things to worry about because we were now up to our axles in a drainage ditch with a large storm with yet another tornado heading for us.
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The Uk team managed to get theirs out and they all got splattered with mud. Dave walked off to a nearby farm and got a farmer with his tractor. God Bless John Deere. That wasn't the farmers name, It was Larry Hill.

Ian came to try and help me and he got splattered with mud. The storm approached and messages over the CB were Tom you have a large tornado heading towards you, but Dave has got a tractor. They were pulling out the ITV chap and so we sat as the storm got nearer. Ian and I recorded a video to send to his mum in case we got blown away. We then we tucked into some doughnuts (last supper)

At last the troops arrived. Dave and the tractor. http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3027/2517841663_d7c0800acc_m.jpg

I have to say being dragged down a dirtrack backwards and trying to steer the front end is quite an experience. However we got off that track. It cost a $100 , well that is what we gave him, he didn't want anything.

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We then nearly got stuck twice. Just after we got off the track a tornado came through, near miss. We found our route east blocked by downed power lines. Photo another day. We saw the tornado as it went just north of us. We set off east and saw a large tornadic storm heading north and had to put our foot down to get to Hill City before it did. We managed it just. It went just just west of our location. People were offering us the use of their shelters. We filmed as it went by and then it moved of to the north.

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Moving away north

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Two tornadoes today for us