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Arizona Thunderstorm Chasers
These are images from storm chasing this year with the Arizona Thunderstorm Chasers. AZTC is a research program at Arizona State University, Department of Meteorology, and is run by Dr. Randy Cerveny. It's purpose is to gather data on the poorly understood Arizona desert monsoon thunderstorms, and to assist the NWS with NEXRAD radar ground truth, damage surveys, and real-timer observations.
August 14, 1998 Chase
Click here for 700K MPEG Movie of Gustnado>
This day it didn't look like much was going to happen, but after a frustrating season so far, we were willing to try anything!
Large storms developed on the Bradshaw Mountains (40NW Phoenix) and moved off into the desert to the SW. As we raced westward on I-10 to intercept, we came across a gust front with a number of gustnados. The image below shows a small gustnado that crossed the freeway about 40 yards in front of us - at the Agua Fria river bridge. This looks similar to a dust devil, except that it is moving rapidly to the south, and is stronger than a normal dust devil of that size. Although it is hard to see in the video, it is throwing a lot of debris into the air.
last update 07/24/95