Lori Mehmen of Orchard, Iowa took this *INCREDIBLE* picture

[underpants]

A huge tornado funnel cloud touches down in Orchard, Iowa, Tuesday, June 10, 2008 at 9:04 p.m. The Globe Gazette and Mitchell County Press News reported that Lori Mehmen of Orchard, took the photo from outside her front door. Mehmen said the funnel cloud came near the ground and then went back up into the clouds. Besides tree and crop damage, no human injuries were reported.
(AP Photo/Lori Mehmen)

[Bluebear]

1. Totally incredible photography!

And skeeery!

[madaboutharry]

2. That photo should win an award.

Amazing.

[demnan]

That took a lot of nerve

I wouldn't stop to take a picture if I had that coming toward me.

[BOSSHOG]

3. That's got to be a Pulitzer - No contest!!

Lordy, Lori has had her bravery ticket punched.

[Bluebear]

5. Immediately my first thought too!

[underpants]

What, 250 maybe 300 yards away?

:shrug:

I don't know if it brave or what but it sure is something!

[tekisui]

4. Tha is an amazing photo.

Amazing.

[magellan]

6. Jesus where do people find the presence of mind?

I'd be running for my life! Kudos to her for the incredible photo, it's quite beautiful in a terrifying way.

[calimary]

37. Man, NO KIDDING! My husband just said "that's the best tornado photo I've ever seen!"

I couldn't agree more.

Looks like the face of some indescribable monster, mouth open, tongue dipping way down, ready to terrorize and consume.

:scared:

[Fleshdancer]

7. I would be shaking too bad to keep the camera still enough

such an amazing and scary photo

[htuttle]

8. I was that close to a tornado once, but that one looks a lot nicer

The one I saw was all dark greyish-brown and sort of mottled, probably because it just finished eating a mobile home park. From the account, this one just touched down so it wasn't full of dirt yet.

It's true what they say about them sounding just like freight trains, too.

:scared:

[Sequoia]

9. Horrifying !!! Wow!

Do you have a link?

[MissB]

22. I googled it up.

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/huge-tornado-funnel-cloud-touches-down-Orchard-Iowa-Tuesday-June/photo//080613/480/da7c9d5f752c47d2a2d2866abfa3b12b/

[Sequoia]

28. Thank you.

[City Lights]

10. Wow. What a photo!

If I looked out my front door and saw that, I would have dropped the camera and made a beeline for the basement! No way would I have stood there and snapped that photo.

[laundry_queen]

11. Amazing picture!

There is nothing more beautiful and terrifying at the same time than a supercell thunderstorm/funnel cloud.

[central scrutinizer]

12. The midwest has the greatest clouds - see here

http://www.hprcc.unl.edu/nebraska/june2004hastings-mammatus.html

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many more at link

[kestrel91316]

26. Those aren't beautiful in my book. They are terrifying.

I have seen "dirty green cottonballs" with my own eyes once, right before the Xenia F5 in 1974.

The only thing about those two pics that doesn't scream "run for your lives!!!!" is that they aren't dirty green. What's up with that?

[Crabby Appleton]

45. My sister was driving down 42 toward Xenia from Columbus

that afternoon to get to her home in Beavercreek that afternoon at the same time the tornado was hitting. Cars coming toward her out of Xenia were flashing their lights, one stopped her and told her to turn around and flee or find cover.

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. Amazing photo

[Canuckistanian]

14. It looks like a gigantic face

With the "tongue" reaching to the ground.

Amazing.

[underpants]

18. I see that

as if the tongue is going down and to the right from the face.

Good catch.

[Habibi]

27. I saw that too!

Hm. Maybe there *is* an Angry Sky Being? :scared:

[malaise]

15. That's amazing

and beautiful.

[ColbertWatcher]

16. Damn! Run, Lori, run! n/t

[AlCzervik]

17. o m g

[Xenocrates]

19. I would be so awed.. awestruck.. shock and awed?

that I wouldn't remember to grab the camera.

[Cleita]

20. The photographer has nerves of steel IMHO.

How did she do it without having a heart attack first?

[Kolesar]

23. Or a telephoto lens of glass

:evilgrin:

[Cleita]

24. Even so. You still have to be too close for comfort. n/t

[Kolesar]

25. Yeah. With ya'

Mercy

[Oeditpus Rex]

49. Looks like a short telephoto

There's not much depth compression. I'd guess the lens was around 75-85 mm (35 mm format equivalent).

[libnnc]

21. whoa

THAT looks like something out of one of my nightmares.

amazing

[wryter2000]

29. Hokey smoke, Bullwinkle

:wow:

[realisticphish]

30. i REALLY want a hi-res of that

[hfojvt]

31. Orchard, Iowa population 90 just south of Osage

Having once worked in Mason City, home of the Globe Gazette and shopped in Osage, county seat of Mitchell County, I had to wonder where the heck Orchard was. Scary pic.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

32. This photo should win an award. Wow!

[IDemo]

33. cue - "We've gotta get outta this place"

[swishyfeet]

34. Wow. They've got U.S. flags in Mordor?

[cascadiance]

35. I was closer than this to a tornado when driving to Cedar Rapids many years ago...

I couldn't see the nice "funnel cloud" against a gray background as the whole sky was very dark, but I was about a half a mile away from an overpass over the freeway, and could see on the other side many huge what appeared to be two or three foot branches from trees, etc. blowing sideways in the wind along with the rain and a semi just in front of me tipping about 30 degrees sideways (it was the only vehicle I could see in front of me). Needless to say, I stopped under the overpass with my Honda Accord and didn't try to drive through it!

That is an incredible picture!

[alphafemale]

36. gasp!

[bean fidhleir]

38. Astounding photo. Pulitzer for sure, for sure

And to think that's going to be a common type of photo in a few years. Hard to believe, no?

[alphafemale]

39. GREAT picture, possibl doctored ?

I am Alpha Female's counterpart, Democrat and skeptic. I am not convinced of this picture's validity, because if you look at the shaft of the tornado, there are four concentric bands working their way outward from it. Where the outer band goes behind the shaft, there is a neat little wedge missing from the whirlin' vortex's shaft. I would love for somebody to explain how that would occur? I actually called City Hall in Orchard, Iowa at 6:05 EDST today (Monday) and whoever answered the phone confirmed that he was familiar with the picture, that indeed they had had a large tornado touch down with no deaths or injuries, and that No, it was not the same tornado which struck the Boy Scout camp. I still want to know about the missing wedge in the picture. Anybody have the time/interest and capability to examine the photo a little closer? Robert the Skeptical I

[pt22]

40. That's exactly what has me wondering if it's a real photo.

I've seen dozens of tornados and even aside from the "missing chunk" it's a little too perfect.

also there is no debris below the wall cloud...there certainly should be. :shrug:

[Occulus]

47. No, clouds do that when they rotate

The rotation creates concentric circular patterns around the center of rotation. The "missing" wedge, if you could see the rest of the could, would probably reveal itself to be the location the funnel dropped from.

Here's a video of another, similar storm cell from further outside the affected area. Notice the same sort of concentric banding you see in the OP still photo.

edit: an even better one is here.

The poster below you talks of debris. That would only happen if the tornado actually touched down. When they first descend, they're a pure and ghostly white- it's only after they begin to suck up debris like a giant Hoover that they turn dingy gray.

I blew this photo up and examined the area in question minutely, and there's just no possible way it's faked. The only thing even remotely possible would be if the clouds were CGI, which would require an enormous amount of computing power and rendering time to model accurately- not mention the expertise needed to properly model a twister such as seen in the film... er, Twister.

(By the way- if you want to see what an accurately modeled and properly animated tornado looks like, watch that film. The plot is crap, the research method in the film has been abandoned, and the acting could have been better, but the tornadoes still just rock.)

Really. Big storms honestly do look like this.

[poliscifanboy]

41. scary !!

I probably would have pooped myself.

[uppityperson]

42. Saw that in paper yesterday and am totally amazed. Incredible.

[bigwillq]

43. Wow, that is amazing.

Scary but amazing. It's a great shot. Kudos to her for braving that monster to get that shot.

[Maine-ah]

44. it's weird. when I look at it, it looks like a giant mouth

sucking the earth up.

[mcctatas]

48. That is exactly what I thought....

giant mouth!

[kitkat65]

46. I think I just peed myself a little.

DANG! What an image.