By Scott Sistek May 11, 2015
Not sure I've ever seen a photograph that captures the beauty and power of weather in one singular shot.
Snohomish's Benjamin Jurkovich, part of the JWSevere Weather Chasing Team has been out storm chasing in the Midwest for the past few weeks and he's had his share of twisters, super cells, and other images that define Tornado Alley in the spring.
But this one he got near Wiley, Colorado Saturday afternoon might be the most unique in his portfolio -- a tornado at the same time as a rainbow.
"It was pretty darn awesome!" he said.
Jurkovich said most of his storm chases have been in the dusty Midwest as it hadn't rained much, but the night before this photograph, that portion of Colorado had heavy rains, helping to clear the air for this spectacular shot.
It's just one of many tornadoes Ben has found during his two week jaunt.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4urTLbQ1VNg
He's been lucky so far in not having too many close calls - the one exception was while chasing a storm near Hayes, Kansas, another area of rotation began to develop to their southwest moving northeast:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=YEIBxQBUlto
They had to use a series of remote, dirt roads to escape and when they looked back, they found a low, "ground scraping" wall cloud rotating right over where they just were. No confirmed tornado there, but a dangerous spot to be in.
His favorite story though comes from Texas. He said someone followed him on Twitter from Texas Friday morning just out of the blue and later that day, there was a large supercell thunderstorm with rotation that was heading for the small town of Throckmorton in Texas. Jurkovich's team was on the northwest side of that town and could see the storm begin to spin and an ominous wall cloud begin to emerge as it headed right for them. A tornado warning was issued by the National Weather Service, but Jurkovich noted no tornado sirens were going off in town. They contacted the sheriff's office and moments later, the sirens went off.
A tornado did eventually form, but managed to just miss town by about a quarter mile.
After Ben Tweeted some of the videos and photos from the storm, he got a note from his newest Texas follower -- it turns out Ben had been storm chasing right near his ranch, which was close to the spot of the tornado. " 'You kept my family safe today,' " Ben said the Tweet read. "That's why I chase," Ben said.
The man offered that if Ben was ever back in the area, to come by his cattle ranch and he'd fix him a nice steak. Ben said he just might be heading back to that part of Texas this week to meet up with him.
In all, Ben has put 9,000 miles on his car chasing around the Midwest. (I joked with him he's probably the only storm chaser out there with Washington license plates!) He's coming back home later this week, but I suspect it won't be too long before he's out there again.
In the meantime, Ben says he's going to work on "storm chasing" on the West Coast, live streaming some of our infamous wind storms from the coast during the fall and winter. Maybe show off to the rest of the world that while the Northwest doesn't have the supercell thunderstorms, we do have our own stormy weather to deal with. His team is also raising money to help severe weather warning efforts for small towns in Tornado Alley.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=IBFUr5KFOU8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Z3Y3naJp07w
Snohomish storm chaser gets 1-in-a-million shot of tornado, rainbow | Weather Blog | Seattle News, Weather, Sports, Breaking News | KOMO News
