This page has pictures from our 3rd official storm chase. The people along with us on this chase included Janelle Tucker, Stephen Konarik, Penny Zabel, Eric Hauswirth and myself. The chase took place on April 18, 2002. We left Ames at 3:30 that day and headed west to Boone. We could see towering clouds all around us and could tell something was going to develop. We went north in an attempt to get in a better position when the storms fired. Sure enough, around 4:30, a storm began to develop right in front of us. We spent the first half hour after that getting in position to watch the storm grow. Once there, we began following it across, Hamilton and Hardin counties in Iowa. Once in Hardin county, the storm prompted a tornado warning. This is where we actually confirmed a tornado on the ground. We weren't sure at the time that it was a tornado because all we could see was some dust in the air near the ground right below a wall cloud, but we did get confirmation from KCCI that it was indeed a tornado. We continued to follow the storm across Grundy and Blackhawk counties. Again a tornado warning was issued for southern Blackhawk county. This time we were unable to confirm any tornado, but the storm had great structure and we did see a wall cloud associated with the storm at many points during the chase. At this point it got dark and we called off the chase. We went back to Ames by highway 30. This was another successful chase.