Aug 17 Rapid City tornado pictures

These pictures of the recent extreme weather in Rapid City are pretty cool. Many thanks to Kristen Bartell (kbat17-at-rushmore.com) for sharing these cool pictures. I added a little contrast in iPhoto and posted them on Picasa..

Many thanks to Kristin Bartell (kat17--at--rushmore.com) for sharing these! She says ...

I took these photographs shortly before 6 pm on Friday, 8/17/07 at the Pilot truck stop at Deadwood Ave. and the I-90 in Rapid City. A tornado warning was issued a few minutes later. These pictures are not all crystal clear, but conditions became very unfavorable toward the end, as you can imagine. There was almost continuous lightning and the sky became quite green. Winds were probably well in excess of 50 mph. Feel free to use/enhance/study these as you like, though I would appreciate credit if these are publicly used or posted. These are in chronological order and show the progression of a funnel cloud forming over the course of about 15 minutes until the wind, rain and hail became too intense to continue photographing and I had to seek shelter.