Today we slept in at our hotel, and left at noon to radio shack to meet up with Verne. There we got lunch at a delicious Mexican restaurant, which Tony was in love with, but it was good stuff. After lunch we drove north just outside of Wakeeny and hung out on some dirt road next to cows mooing at us. We waited there forever it seemed, just looking at anything with the slightest bit of vertical development and saying over again how we liked the humidity and southeasterly winds. The discovery team drove by with their army of vehicles including the TIV and DOW. We ended up heading towards Hill City, when Verne Decided to head off west to just get in the middle of the cell that was to our west, and Tony later decided to do the same because He didn't want to take the chance of the storm coming at night. Skinner and I waited in Hill City for a super cell that developed to our west. We were able to intercept it on the front side and before it got dark we got to see the mesos and the wall cloud that was really defined. We were hauling to get there, we drove past Mike Umscheid and I decided to pull over to get some pictures of a meso, when there was one right on top of us. We noticed when we had no winds, it went dead silent. That was really creepy, and skinner started yelling "SHEP! Get in the car now! We have to go!" lol. We drove half a mile down the road and looked back to realize it was rotating above our heads back there. We pulled over next to Mike U and we got some pictures and video. We headed back to hill city because it was headed East-Southeast towards the city. The tornado Sirens were blaring throughout the town, and a ton of Skywarn, and other chasers and spotters were south of the city watching. I dropped my camera out of the car and realized it when i drove south down the road a ways. So we raced back just to the edge of the storm and saved my camera. We watched as it passed over hill city, we didn't see a tornado but it seemed very likely. Apparently there was a storm chaser and a deputy who saw the tornado but I don't understand how they could of at night in rain, and especially without being in danger to get to a point where you could see it.
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