Tornado in Alaska a First

[Guest guest]

http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/6777179p-6666328c.html

 

Tornado spotted near Sand Point is apparently a first

CAPTURED: Twister was photographed touching nearby peaks.

 

By DAN JOLING

The Associated Press

 

Published: August 3rd, 2005

Last Modified: August 3rd, 2005 at 04:49 AM

Residents of Sand Point witnessed a weather phenomenon that elders say

is a first-time occurrence.

They looked across Popof Strait to nearby Unga Island last week and

watched a tornado touch two uninhabited mountains.

" You could see the clouds twisting and debris spinning off of it, " said

Jaclynne Larsen, 30, a teacher at King Cove who returns to her hometown

each summer.

Sand Point, population 908, is on Popof Island, one of a dozen or so

Shumagin Islands 570 miles southwest of Anchorage near the tip of the

Alaska Peninsula and the start of the Aleutian chain.

Larsen was at home with her mother when a friend, Dwain Foster, alerted

them to the funnel cloud. He ran up their stairs and told them to grab

their cameras.

Sam Albanese, warning coordination meteorologist for the National

Weather Service in Anchorage, confirmed that the funnel cloud was a

tornado after talking to residents and seeing photographs. Tornados

originate in clouds accompanying severe thunderstorms and touch the

ground, unlike water spouts and dust devils, which originate from

Earth's surface.

" It's very rare for the Alaska Peninsula, " Albanese said.

One reason for the small number of reports of tornados in Alaska is the

size of the state and the small population, he said.

" If it has happened, it probably wasn't observed, " he said. " We don't

really have the means to observe this. "

Tornados start in severe thunderstorms, but the National Weather

Service's system for detecting lightning strikes does not extend to the

area near Sand Point. It's the same story for Weather Service radar,

which can alert observers to tornados.

Larsen ran outside with her camera, looked to the southwest and saw the

tornado.

" It lifted off one mountain and touched down again on another

mountain, " she said.

She watched for 15 to 20 minutes.

" It just lifted off of that one and dissipated, " she said.

Larsen, 30, had never seen a tornado on the islands. Neither has her

mother or grandparents, she said.

Susan Shoemaker, a police department dispatcher and wife of the city's

public safety director, was in the parking lot of the Alaska Commercial

store when she saw the tornado. She had lived in Kentucky and

recognized the funnel cloud.

 

Click on above link for full story and photo.