On Wednesday, North Dakota native and farmer Jesse Bye captured an enormous tornado tearing through the fields near Hatton, North Dakota.
Bye was spraying corn in his farm fields when the tornado touched down.
He described his close encounter with the deadly powers of nature to Valley News Live, “When I was coming down the road it looked like it was going to come back at me.”
“This one kept getting bigger and bigger. And just kept getting darker and darker as it moved across the fields. It was just like a vacuum cleaner sucking up the dirt.”
He then talked about his fears that it might destroy some power lines, “So I was watching for the power lines as I crossed here. I figured well, if it’s got a lot of power it’s going to snap these lines. As you can see, they’re still standing.”
The National Weather Service reported this enormous tornado was an EF-0, meaning it had a nastier bark than its bite. However, it still had a width of 50 yards and reached winds up to 80 mph. In fact the tornado traveled 2.7 miles tossing tons of debris in its path.
Valley News Live notes you can still the path of destruction the tornado left in its wake just a mile west of Hatton.
I definitely would not want to have been filming anywhere near it. Take a look:
#Tornado picking up dirt around 1:30 PM CT near Hatton, ND. Video from Jesse Bye via @ValleyNewsLive Tornado Watch parts of ND/MN until 6. pic.twitter.com/MK1UykHb75
— Mike Seidel (@mikeseidel) June 7, 2017
Jesse Bye described how lucky he was the tornado did not turn towards him, go into town, or take out a farm, “Probably got lucky it didn’t go through a farm, or anything, or go through town. When I went to town to pick up my Dad, I saw the kids were leaving one of the ball parks.”
Source: Valley News Live