Video Shot into the Eye of a Tornado

While a video crew was filming a tornado, the twister tilted over on its side and the crew got video looking into the tornado from the top.

A first, and simply incredible.

It looked like "a wide-mouth bass" opening up to eat him, said Weather Channel meteorologist Mike Bettes.

"The top of the funnel actually tilted toward us," Bettes said. "You could almost see a funnel inside a funnel." It was about 2 miles from the camera and "we got a little nervous," he said.

Bettes is part of the VORTEX2 project team, a group of tornado chasers funded by the National Science Foundation and NOAA (at $10.5 million dollars) to investigate how tornadoes form.

VORTEX2 has gotten off to a slow start, thanks to Mother Nature. Only about half as many tornadoes have formed this year as normal. The project runs through June 13.

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