What a strange summer we’ve had so far in terms of weather, be it severe or not.

Possibly the oddest occurrence we’ve had in the local area to date was Sunday night near Stuart and Dexter, when area residents caught a small tornado on film following a night out.

Kelly Surber, a paramedic specialist with the Stuart Rescue Unit, was one of those residents out watching the clouds, and despite some of the sky being colored by a healthy blue, sure enough, a tornado touched down a few miles from his vantage point.

“We were coming back from the races and we were just getting ready to head home and as we walked up to my truck, my wife looked up and said, ‘hey Kelly, those clouds look pretty weird’.  Then I said, ‘whoa, that is a funnel cloud’.  There were then a couple of funnel clouds and it eventually progressed (inward), and at no time were we under any kind of severe thunderstorm watch or any tornado watch, anything of the sort.”

Surber says the tornado dissipated a short time after forming, at which time he and his wife, Toni, went and tracked its path to check for any possible damage.

“We drove out south and east of town… about three miles east of (Stuart) and about a mile and a half south, kind of between White Pole Road and the Interstate.  It looked like it touched down in a bean field, and there was about a four to five foot path where it didn’t even pull the beans up out of the ground, it just muddied them.  You could see where the beans were muddy and it just looked like a walking path.”

Surber says there was no damage to any structures during Sunday’s brief tornado near Stuart and Dexter, and Adair and Guthrie County Emergency Management Coordinator Bob Kempf confirms to Raccoon Valley Radio there was no damage.

When asked to sum up what this summer’s weather has been like in recapping his tornado spotting experience Sunday, Surber answered simply and directly: “it’s been crazy.”