History-making Ronaldo at the double after Portugal make hard work of Hungary
History-making Cristiano Ronaldo scored twice as Portugal produced a late show to kick off the defense of their European Championship title with a 3-0 win against Hungary in Budapest.
The game looked to be heading for a draw as the Portuguese struggled to break down a dogged Hungarian defense but after Rafael Guerreiro opened the scoring in the 84th minute, Ronaldo was able to assure the win with two further goals.
As expected, the pre-game attention was on the Juventus forward, who became the first player in history to dispute five European Championship final phases, but Portugal fielded a wealth of attacking talent with Diogo Jota, Bernardo Silva and Bruno Fernandes also in the starting 11.
The Hungarian plan was clearly one of containment with five men strung across the back behind a three-man midfield, but even so the Portuguese created plenty of chances in the first half.
Hungarian keeper, Peter Gulacsi was his side’s hero with saves from Jota and Pepe and although the home side were putting in some meaty challenges, Portugal were still creating chances, with Gulacsi next denying Ronaldo and Jota as the game was played in the Hungarian half.
Ronaldo wasted the best chance of the game just before halftime, inexplicably firing over the bar from five meters after a low cross from Fernandes.
At the other end Hungary’s only chance was a header from big striker Adam Szalai following a free kick.
Although the second half kicked off with Gulacsi at full stretch again to parry Ronaldo’s header from another Portuguese corner, Portugal found it increasingly difficult to find space among the massed ranks of Hungarian defenders until Fernandes tried his luck from distance in the 67th minute only for the keeper to respond once again.
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With the Portuguese being drawn forward, Hungary worked a break in the 72nd minute forcing Rui Patricio to scramble the ball clear from Szalai.
Another break saw Hungary substitute Szabolcs Schon have the ball in the Portuguese net after cutting inside and firing home a left foot shot only for the flag to go up for offside and minutes later Rafael Guerreiro scored the first of the game.
The ball was worked out right and the full back had a big stroke of luck as his shot took a big deflection to wrong-foot Gulacsi in the 84th minute.
Hungary had looked comfortable before the goal, but two minutes later they were 2-0 down when Rafa Silva was bundled over in the area, with Ronaldo decisively scoring the penalty and there was still time for him to net his second of the game by finishing off a team move to round Gulacsi and make it 3-0, which had looked unlikely just eight minutes earlier.
Putins scheme to save strongmen won him a seat at Bidens table
President Joe Biden warned U.S. allies this week theyre in a contest with “autocrats” around the world. Its one of the few things he and Russian President Vladimir Putin are likely to agree on when they meet on Wednesday.
From Syria to Venezuela, Russia has intervened to save authoritarian leaders accused of refusing or stealing democratic elections, thwarting what the Kremlin portrays as Washington’s attempts at regime change. The interference is part of a wider policy of confrontation with the West that forced Biden to pay attention, resulting in Putin’s seat at the table in Geneva.
For Putin, the immediate upsides are clear, even if Moscow’s stance is potentially damaging to Russia’s longer term economic prospects. By deliberately rattling the U.S. and the European Union since returning to office as president in 2012, he has produced strategic gains that helped end what many Russians see as a period of national humiliation. In doing so, he forced the U.S. to treat Moscow as a peer once more, if a hostile one.
“We are going to prove them wrong,” Biden said of autocracies, addressing reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Monday.
Yet far from being defensive about supporting often brutal and unpopular leaders – something the U.S. also practiced during the Cold War, after all – Russia portrays its position as a principled defense against destabilizing Western policies.
“We don’t have the messianic zeal with which our Western colleagues try to spread their values around the globe,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a foreign policy conference in Moscow last week.
In 2015, Russian jets and troops saved Syria’s President Bashar Assad from almost certain defeat at the hands of rebel militias. In 2019, Moscow sent military support to President Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela at a time when he too seemed unlikely to survive. More recently, Putin backed Belarus strongman Alexander Lukashenko as he crushed peaceful pro-democracy protests and forced a European airliner to land so he could arrest an opposition journalist. All three are still in power, for all the U.S. and EU’s protestations.
Seen from Putin’s side of the table, sanctions are an acceptable price of great-power rivalry. His steadfast support for Assad is regarded by the region’s mostly unelected leaders in stark contrast to the U.S. abandonment of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak during the 2011 Arab uprisings, said Alexander Aksenyonok, a former senior diplomat with decades of experience in the Middle East.
“This is all part of a big game with the West,” said Aksenyonok, now vice-president of the Russian International Affairs Council, a think-tank established by the Kremlin.
Until recently, it was a lopsided contest. Russia opposed NATO’s 1999 bombing of Serbia over Kosovo, but could do nothing to stop it nor the subsequent toppling of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. In 2011, Putin could only cry foul when a NATO intervention provided air cover for rebels to defeat Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi. Twice, in 2004 and 2014, Russia failed to secure power for Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine, despite spending billions of dollars on influence operations.
Turning that around to go toe-to-toe with the U.S. in select theaters has proved cheap in fiscal terms, according to Sergei Guriev, a Russian economist who fled to Paris in 2013 and served as chief economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
Estimates for Russia’s military spending in Syria run to about $2 billion, a sum that pales next to the total of more than $2 trillion the U.S. spent in Afghanistan. The Syria campaign also enabled combat-testing of troops and equipment developed in a rapid military modernization program.
Russian interventions abroad have probably cost less than 1% of annual economic output, a price the Kremlin was happy to pay, said Guriev. “In a way after 2012-13 they reached a new social contract” with Russian citizens, he said of Putin and his entourage. “Previously it was: ‘we provide economic growth’; now it’s ‘we produce the feeling of a superpower’.”
Yet longer term, the policy has made Russia “toxic” to the foreign investment it needs to grow, according to Guriev. The national pride that soared after Putin’s 2014 annexation of Crimea has subsided, with discontent rising as spending on health, education and pensions are squeezed. The Kremlin has responded by cracking down on political opponents.
Whether Putin has the means to sustain the reprieves he won for unpopular leaders abroad is also unclear.
In Syria, Russia has had neither the funds nor allies to begin the nation’s reconstruction. The victory Putin’s air force won for Assad remains fragile. A Feb. 4 Facebook post by the vocally pro-Assad businessman Fares Shehabi complained Syrians were going hungry, despite the fact that “the Russian ally is the largest producer of wheat in the world.”
In Venezuela, Russia’s support has come to be seen as largely self-interested and transactional. Moscow-based Rosneft PJSC sold its Venezuelan businesses to the Russian government last year, to protect against U.S. sanctions on the Maduro regime. Few details have emerged of a 10-year cooperation agreement that was signed in March.
“They’re interested in Venezuela not just because it’s been an antagonist to the U.S. and is much bigger than Cuba, but it’s a very cheap option for Russia to maintain a presence in the region,” opposition lawmaker Angel Alvarado said from Caracas.
Putin has shown a dislike for some of the leaders rescued, including Lukashenko, whom Russia tried to undermine in elections in 2010, according to Kataryna Wolczuk, a Russia specialist at Chatham House, a London think tank. Putin’s personal preference became irrelevant once street protests began, something he was not going to allow to succeed so close to home as Belarus.
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“It is not about liking autocrats per se, it’s about countries being loyal to Russia,” Wolczuk said.
Still, while Putin can’t offer anything like the vast financial and military resources that Washington controls, the Kremlin can provide embattled rulers limited, but at times decisive, battlefield support, global diplomatic and propaganda cover, some protection from U.S. sanctions through Russian state financial and other operations – and always a safe refuge in Russia if things go south.
More than that, saving leaders under pressure is a principled position for Putin, said Alexander Dynkin, president of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, which advises the Kremlin.
“Media support, advisers, doctors, bodyguards and a safe haven in Sochi rather than Miami are inexpensive and effective” tools for Putin to deploy, Dynkin said. “He copies the U.S.A. in this, but does it more efficiently.”
Published : June 16, 2021
By : Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Marc Champion, Henry Meyer
The number of Covid-19 cases in Southeast Asia crossed 4.38 million with 23,120 new cases reported on Tuesday, lower than Monday’s tally of 23,995.
New deaths meanwhile were 415, increasing from Monday’s 390 and taking the total deaths in Asean to 85,507 so far.
Malaysia reported 5,419 new cases and 101 more deaths on Tuesday, driving the cumulative cases in the neighbouring country to 667,876 patients and a total of 4,069 deaths.
The country’s prime minister announced a 4-phase rehabilitation plan starting with the easing of lockdown measures when daily infections decline to less than 4,000 and at least 10 per cent of the population is vaccinated.
Meanwhile, Vietnam reported 402 new cases, taking the cumulative cases in that country to 11,212 patients and a total of 61 deaths.
The government is preparing to ease disease control measures in Hanoi after the infection rate in the city began decreasing, but entertainment venues are still ordered shut.
Anger and backlash in Britain as government confirms four more weeks of coronavirus restrictions
LONDON – Anger bubbled over in Britain in the wake of Prime Minister Boris Johnson decision to delay Englands final stage of coronavirus restriction rollbacks, in the face of rising cases and the spread of the highly transmissible delta variant.
The news dominated tabloid headlines. Tuesday’s Daily Mail front page branded the government’s decision a “bitter blow to millions,” while the Sun asked, “Will we ever be free?”
Footage emerged of prominent BBC journalist Nick Watt being chased and verbally abused at an anti-shutdown protest outside Downing Street just hours before Johnson spoke on Monday. The group surrounded him, yelling “traitor” and “shame on you” into his face as he ran toward police in an effort to seek safety. Some demonstrators accused the BBC of “lying” about the legality of lockdown measures.
The video, which was circulated widely on Twitter, highlighted the distrust and divisions that remain over rules and restrictions sparked by the coronavirus pandemic, and the risks faced by reporters and front line workers.
“Disgraceful to see the hounding of Nick Watt doing his job,” Johnson tweeted following the incident.
“This behavior is completely unacceptable. All journalists should be able to carry out their work without intimidation or impediment,” a BBC spokesperson said in response to the video.
Human rights campaigner Rebecca Vincent referred to the scene as “appalling” and called on Britain to “do better.”
“This isn’t protest; it’s harassment & possibly assault (given Covid risk). Journalists must be able to do their jobs safely,” she tweeted.
Anti-shutdown protesters marching through the city ahead of Johnson’s briefing on Monday held signs that read “Freedom is not negotiable” and “Open the UK for business now,” while the opposition Labour Party blamed “incompetence” and “slow decision-making” from the conservative government for the delay.
Although the government acknowledged that people would probably be frustrated by the decision, Johnson expressed hope that pushing the deadline to ease all restrictions back by an additional four weeks would allow millions more people to receive their second dose of vaccine before people attempt to resume life as normal.
Critics say Johnson should have added India, where the delta variant was first identified, to the official red travel list earlier and implemented more-stringent border-control measures. India was not added to the red list until April 23.
“Our borders were as secure as a sieve,” Labour lawmaker Jonathan Ashworth said on Monday, noting that at least 20,000 people had entered the country from India during that time. “The prime minister’s complacency allowed this variant to reach our shores.”
Others expressed concern that the new July date for the lifting of restrictions – widely nicknamed freedom day – would again be changed.
Speaking to “BBC Breakfast” on Tuesday, Michael Gove, the cabinet office minister, denied that Johnson would ever “put the health of the country at risk” and said that only a “bizarre and unprecedented” event could prevent the new date of July 19 from changing.
At least 128,000 people in Britain have died of covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
Malaysia expects to fully reopen its economy from end-October
Malaysia expects to fully reopen its economy and lift a ban on interstate travel beginning end-October at the earliest if new covid cases average below 500 a day, said Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin.
The current phase of the national lockdown is costing the economy 1 billion ringgit ($242 million) a day as most businesses remain shut, Muhyiddin said in a televised address Tuesday. The government expects to begin easing the curbs in steps starting July, he said.
The second phase that’s expected in July will begin once daily cases drop below below 4,000 and 10% of the population is fully vaccinated, he said, while outlining a recovery plan that contains four phases based on three indicators: average daily infections, ICU bed capacity and the percentage of the population that’s inoculated.
“If everything goes well, we should expect a more convincing recovery in the final quarter of this year,” said Mohd Afzanizam Abdul Rashid, chief economist for Bank Islam Malaysia. “It is about meeting the timeline and thresholds.”
The lockdown is already showing results, the prime minister said. The nation’s covid-19 curve has begun flattening, and the health care system is able to handle new cases amid rising recovery rates.
Malaysia went into a lockdown June 1 after daily covid cases crossed the 9,000 mark, placing the health-care system under tremendous pressure. The curbs were extended Friday by two weeks to June 28. New cases stood at 5,419 on Tuesday.
There’s “light at the end of the tunnel” as the pace of vaccination increases, he said.
Malaysia injected 197,963 shots on Monday, the highest daily tally of inoculations and close to the government’s target of 200,000 doses per day, according to Health Minister Adham Baba. The government aims to achieve herd immunity by year-end.
Muhyiddin last month unveiled 40 billion ringgit in relief measures ahead of the lockdown, including 5 billion ringgit in direct fiscal injection.
“I am cautiously optimistic that with proper planning, execution and support from all Malaysians, we can emerge victorious and stronger from this crisis,” he said Tuesday.
Highlights of the premier’s address include:
– Malaysia will enter phase three of its recovery plan once daily cases fall below 2,000 and 40% of the population is fully vaccinated. This is expected to occur end-August, and will see all economic activities reopen with the exception of those on the negative list. Social activities will be permitted in phases during this period while all economic activities will be allowed, except for those with high risk of transmission, such as pubs, spas and salons. Malaysia may allow parliament to reconvene in this phase, around September or October
– In the final phase that may happen by end-October at the earliest, Malaysia will reopen the economy, allow more social activities and domestic travel.
Published : June 16, 2021
By : Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Anisah Shukry, Yantoultra Ngui
Taiwanese mission in Thailand clarifies President Tsai’s remark
The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Thailand issued a statement on Tuesday explaining that President Tsai Ing-wen was not targeting Thailand over the lack of vaccine supplies.
Last Friday, Tsai had said that Thailand was “prioritising” locally produced AstraZeneca vaccines for its own use due to the spike in infections. Thailand’s caseload as of Tuesday had crossed the 200,000 mark.
“The problem is that goods that were supposed to have arrived in June have not,” Tsai had told a local radio station on Friday. Taiwan has ordered 10 million doses of AstraZeneca, which is being produced in Thailand.
She also said there will be a delay in Taiwan’s vaccine rollout due to an imbalance in global supply and demand but said manufacturers are speeding up production to satisfy the rising global demands.
In its statement, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office pointed out that Tsai had not said Thailand was “blocking” the export of AstraZeneca vaccines.
The statement said both Thailand and Taiwan effectively controlled the outbreak last year and now the entire world is dealing with a surge in infections.
It added that Taiwan and Thailand will continue to jointly fight against Covid-19 and promote health and well-being for their people. It also said Taiwan hopes supplies become stable soon so people’s hardships from Covid-19 can be alleviated.
China National Space Administration plans to launch a Mars sample-return
China is making plans for the future development of its space program, including exploring asteroids and the Jovian system, collecting samples from Mars and exploring the polar region of the moon, said an official from the China National Space Administration-CNSA on Saturday.
Xu Hongliang, a spokesperson of the CNSA, said at a press conference held in Beijing that about the year 2025 China plans to launch a probe to collect samples from a near-Earth asteroid and explore a comet in one mission.
China plans to launch a Mars sample-return
mission and a Jovian system exploration mission sometime about 2030, Xu said.
In addition, China plans to launch the Chang’e-6 and Chang’e-7 lunar probes in the coming five years to explore the environment and resources and collect samples from the polar region of the moon, Xu said.
By the end of 2022, China will have completed the construction of its space station, in which astronauts can stay for prolonged periods to carry out scientific experiments, Xu said.
“We should coordinate space science, space technology and space applications, in accordance with the principle of being technically realizable, financially affordable and scientifically contributive,” said Xu.
The development of heavy-lift launch vehicles, reusable space transportation systems and satellite internet will also be the focus of future development plans, according to Xu.
The CNSA released new images taken by the country’s first Mars rover Zhurong on Friday, signifying the complete success of China’s first Mars exploration mission.
Xu said that China has seen new breakthroughs in the country’s Tianwen-1 mission. The probe has, for the first time, successfully completed the interplanetary flight, soft-landing and roving on an extraterrestrial planet.
The completion of the orbiting, landing and roving on the red planet in one mission indicates that the country has come to the forefront of the world in Mars exploration, Xu said.
He also noted that this is the first time that the country has carried out monitoring and communication activities over a distance of 400 million km and obtained first-hand scientific data on Mars.
Asean reports least number of new Covid-19 cases in six days
Southeast Asia reported 23,995 new cases on Monday, lower than Sunday’s 26,435, and the lowest in six days. Deaths were marginally higher at 390, from Monday’s 387. Total Covid-19 cases in Asean crossed 4.36 million and the death toll rose to 85,092.
Philippines reported 6,426 new cases and 57 deaths on Monday, driving cumulative cases in the country to 1,322,053 with 22,845 deaths. The president announced the extension of a soft lockdown in Manila and surrounding provinces from June 16-30 to control the spread of the outbreak.
Vietnam reported 272 new cases, driving cumulative cases in the country to 10,810 patients and deaths to 61. A hospital in Ho Chi Minh City reported that 55 of its staff, mostly from the administration department, have tested positive for Covid-19 even though they have received two jabs of AstraZeneca vaccine. The patients, however, were found with a small number of the virus and are asymptomatic.
Videos show Ocean City, Md., police Tasering, kneeing teens while enforcing boardwalk vaping ban
On Saturday evening on a boardwalk in Ocean City, Md., police enforcing a ban on vaping surrounded and tackled a teen as an agitated crowd gathered. Then, one officer repeatedly kneed the teen in the stomach.
“Stop resisting!” one of the officers yelled.
Later, police used a Taser on another man in the crowd and battled a third who picked up a bicycle.
The incident, which was caught in viral videos, left four teenagers arrested, authorities said. Ocean City officials pledged to review the officers’ actions but also noted in a news release, “Our officers are permitted to use force, per their training, to overcome exhibited resistance.”
But the videos left many people questioning whether police needed to use such force over a vaping ordinance.
Many also responded to a separate video, which shows a man on a boardwalk with his hands raised above his head who is suddenly hit by a police Taser. Many sharing the video, which has been viewed more than a million times as of early Monday, said the man was also stopped for vaping over the weekend in Ocean City. Police have yet to confirm those details.
Sherrilyn Ifill, the president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, in a tweet Sunday evening called on Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh to investigate. And the ACLU of Maryland released a statement condemning Ocean City police officers for “show(ing) a complete lack of humanity towards these Black children” and said “these incidents are a manifestation of the white supremacy endemic to U.S. policing.”
Frosh said on Twitter on Monday that he watched videos of the incident and was “deeply concerned.” He added that he had “shared that concern with the appropriate law enforcement agencies.”
The videos are the latest flash point over how police use Tasers. In April, a police officer in Brooklyn Center, Minn., shot and killed 20-year-old Daunte Wright, an unarmed Black man, saying she mistook her handgun for a Taser. The officer, Kim Potter, who resigned from the police department after the shooting, was charged with second-degree manslaughter.
The Ocean City incident came in a city that has faced recent questions over its police force’s tactics on its tourist-packed boardwalk. Around this time last year, Ocean City police officials said they had opened a review after an officer was caught on camera wrapping his arms around a man’s neck during an arrest over an open alcohol container. In that incident, the officer appears to threaten the person recording the altercation with a Taser but does not appear to use one.
In a statement shared with The Washington Post, Ocean City Mayor Rick Meehan said the city police department’s office of professional standards is investigating both recent incidents.
“We understand the public’s concern over the videos circulating on social media,” Meehan said, adding: “While the use of force is never the intended outcome, our police department’s first priority is to protect and serve.”
State Sen. Mary Beth Carozza, R-Worcester, said in a statement that she had watched the Ocean City Police Department’s entire video of the arrests and emphasized that the individuals detained “were informed of the smoking and vaping prohibition on the Boardwalk, and their follow up violent actions led to their arrest.”
She said she took part in a 7½-hour ride-along with the police department the night after the boardwalk incident and witnessed various violations and arrests.
“In ALL of these incidents, I personally observed the OCPD officers and public safety aides handled themselves with professionalism as they worked to diffuse and resolve the situation at hand,” she said.
On Saturday, authorities said they were patrolling the boardwalk on foot when they noticed a group of teenagers vaping, according to a news release. The officers informed the group that vaping on the boardwalk was prohibited under a local ordinance, except in designated areas. As the group walked away, officers noticed one of the teenagers starting to vape again, officials said.
Police said the man, 19-year-old Brian Everett Anderson, did not provide identification and became “disorderly.” When they moved to arrest him, Anderson resisted, the authorities allege.
As police were arresting Anderson, authorities said that 19-year-old Kamere Anthony Day was “yelling profanities” and “approached” the officers. Although police told him to back up, authorities allege that Anderson continued to approach them and then resisted arrest. Meanwhile, authorities said, 18-year-old Jahtique Joseph John Lewis tried to hit an officer with a bicycle and also resisted arrest.
Khalil Dwayne Warren, 19, was later arrested for standing on private property next to two “no trespassing signs,” officials said. He then became “disorderly” when told to move, officials claim.
Video of the scene shows police repeatedly using force during the arrests. As a crowd recorded the encounters, multiple police officers pushed one of the men against the wall after he grabbed an officer’s bicycle. Soon after, another teenager pushed one of the officers, prompting an officer to knee him and a third to hit him with a Taser.
In the second video, a single young man faced several officers with his hands raised on an emptier-looking stretch of boardwalk. After he lowered one of his hands toward a backpack, police hit him in the stomach with a Taser and he fell to the ground.
“He was standing there!” one witness can be heard yelling in the video. Another said, “You all did that for no reason.”
The man’s mother identified him as 18-year-old Taizier Griffin. She said the video shows her son being hit with a Taser on the evening of June 6 while he was in Ocean City with a group of friends for Senior Week. She said witnesses told her he was walking on the boardwalk with a tobacco vape when police stopped him and said he wasn’t allowed to vape there. Griffin put the vape in his pocket and began to walk away, his mother told The Washington Post. Witnesses told her an officer then grabbed for the teen’s arm multiple times and Griffin pulled away before he, as the footage shows, raises his hands.
“They end up slamming him back on the ground and hogtying him at his feet,” said Griffin’s mother, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of privacy concerns. “I’ve never seen police do that.” She said her son was arrested and is facing charges, including second-degree assault.
Her son, she said, was “extremely scared” after the incident. “He’s young. That kind of thing would scare anybody.”
The four teens arrested on Saturday, all of whom are from Harrisburg, Pa., were charged with counts including disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and second-degree assault. They were released after appearing in Maryland District Court.
Court records did not list attorneys for them.
The videos left many people incredulous of the city’s explanation for why force was warranted.
“Black and brown children should not be tased while their hands are up,” Maryland House Speaker Adrienne Jones, D-Baltimore County, wrote on Twitter, urging Ocean City officials to review the incident. “Officers should not kneel on the back of a minor. Vaping should not yield a hog tie.”
Published : June 15, 2021
By : The Washington Post · Julian Mark, Paulina Firozi
Oklahoma glider pilot flies around landspout tornado
Oklahoma City native David Evans has been a pilot for about 30 years, but few things compare with what he encountered while flying his glider Sunday. Evans came face to face with a bona fide tornado – and decided to hitch a ride on the upward-moving air around it.
Weather wasn’t conducive for strong thunderstorm activity or tornadoes in the Sooner State on Sunday, but Evans found a landspout, or a borderline tornado that forms in a way similar to many waterspouts or dust devils. That meant it wasn’t born from a thunderstorm or cloud-based rotation, but rather developed from the ground up.
It also couldn’t be spotted on radar, and there were no obvious large-scale weather features that would have clued meteorologists into the chance for tornadoes.
“Realistically, it was more of a landspout, but we sort of have no justification as to why it occurred,” said Ryan Bunker, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Norman, Okla. “We didn’t have any answers.”
Instead, it appears a small, broad surface-based whirl cooked up in the heat of the afternoon sun – as is routine during the summertime.
“I have a little motorglider, and you look for these thermals to stay aloft,” said Evans, who hadn’t been optimistic about the day’s gliding prospects. He took off from Wiley Post Airport on the northwest side of Oklahoma City anyway, hoping to get lucky.
“I motored around Tuttle and Minco, and then I saw some hawks,” recalled Evans. “They’re always a telltale sign of where a thermal might be. I started getting an indication I was getting lift, so I circled in there with them.”
What was a broad, weak, invisible circulation that Evans was riding quickly became drawn into a cloud developing overhead. That stretched it up to the cloud base, causing it to become more narrow and strengthen. Before long, a funnel cloud appeared.
“[The thermal] was raising me up at about 100 or 200 feet per minute,” said Evans. “Then all of a sudden that vapor funnel started forming. It was going down and down and down, but there was no turbulence. I just kept flying around that thing.”
It was unclear to Evans at the time, but apparently the funnel did have a ground circulation attached to it – making it bona fide tornado, albeit a weak one. Winds were probably less than 75 mph, but it did stir up vegetation and hay on the property of Judy Curry.
That would make it an official tornado, similar in formative processes to the picturesque funnel that danced east of Denver last week.
“It was really pretty,” said Evans. “It went from base of clouds . . . it was a rat’s tail-looking thing.”
Back at the Weather Service, Bunker was equally impressed.
“I’ve seen cool drone footage, but you never see someone in their own plane flying right next to a funnel,” he said.
Bunker’s hypothesis is that there was a residual weak boundary of some sort draped across the area, sufficient to enhance low-level spin. That might have helped a tiny whirlwind form while also initiating upward-growing clouds above.
“You can stretch it and get a brief spinup,” said Bunker.
In the meantime, Evans says he’s looking forward to taking to the air again soon – but doubts he’ll see anything so spectacular again.
