Viewer Pictures From Tuesday... Weird Hail & A Tornado

As we're watching this severe thunderstorm watch to make sure nothing severe sprouts up... we're looking through some of our viewer photos sent in. There are a couple interesting ones from yesterday that you may be interested in. The first is a picture of a tornado from Hand county.

This was the picture taken by the Hand county sheriff:

Here is what he had to say about it:

Some of you contacted my office (Hand County Sheriff's Office) about a photograph of the tornado which was reported and verified in Southeast Hand County. The storm was located north of 213th Street and near 370th Avenue. Members of the Wessington Fire Department and Ambulance service were watching the storms and reported a funnel. At 3:53 PM the EMTs reported the funnel had reached the ground and became a tornado. I took this photo about three minutes into the life of the tornado. The tornado lived for several minutes and seemed to swirl around on the ground looking for a direction to head. It eventually disapated into the rope stage and disappeared.

Distance between me and the tornado..about 1 to 1.25 miles. Ground cross-section: one to three tenths of a mile across.

Interesting stuff! We appreciate pictures like that - especially with the detail given. If you have pictures like that send them to KDLT at weather@kdlt.com and we'll put them on-air or on the weather blog.

The other picture was interesting as well:


That donut-shaped hail was seen by the Gregorys near Ethan. Pretty wild. If you are curious to know how donut-shaped hail forms send an email to a_shaffer@kdlt.com and I'll give you the details.

Stay safe, and we'll update you if anything else happens tonight!

~KDLT Meteorologist Aaron Shaffer