Central Florida Tornado

I don't know if this is showing up in other inboxes yet.

As some may be aware, Florida was recently hit by severe weather and a tornado touched down, the image depicted here was attached purported to be taken by someone in a residential development known as "The Villages"

I remembered seeing the image before and did a quick Google search, and sure enough the image is very prevalent on the internet. I don't know who the original photographer was, or where the image was actually taken, but it has apparently been around for much longer than the e-mail message states.

The original e-mail (minus all the forwarding headers and whatnot):

>From: Flori, Sandy
>Sent: Friday, February 09, 2007 9:20 AM
>To: Remiesiewicz, Micki; Pickett, Lee; Kristie, Kathy; Sloan, Cathy;
>Schoenacher, Nancy; MacKinnon, Cile; Fellner, Lucy
>Subject: FW: A village resident took this photo of the Tornado
>Importance: High
>
>
>5d4bba.jpg
>
>
>Mark Godinez
>Quality Assurance Specialist
>mxg@pringle.com
>352-589-3048
>5d4c27.jpg
>
>
>5d4c56.gif
>
>5d4c75.gif
>
>
>5d4c85.jpg
>
>
>This E-mail document may include proprietary and confidential information
>of Citizens First Bank and may only be read by those person or persons to
>whom it is addressed. If you have received this E-mail message in error,
>please notify us immediately. This document may not be reproduced, copied,
>distributed, published, modified, or furnished to third parties, without
>the prior written consent of Citizens First Bank.
>
>Citizens First Bank
>The Villages, FL 3215

The picture:



Anybody know who took this image and where it was taken?

It's been hosted here for at least 14 months, judging by the timestamps on the comments. The person who posted this image acknowledges that s/he lifted it from the net.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/psrman/...n/set-1534203/

ETA: File this one under one of my biggest pet peeves. People who pass things off as things they are most certainly not.

[Keeper of the Mad Bunnies]

Here you go, direct from Accuweather:

Fred's Lightning / Tornado Photo

Fred says he's not a professional photographer but he was taking lightning photos from his back yard on June 15, 1993 when he got this lucky shot of a large waterspout on Lake Okeechobee, Florida. The photo was taken about 10:00 at night.

James Powell

[Eddylizard]

Here is page with the copyright info. It is copyrighted to National Geographic, but that doesn't tell you the name of the photographer. This appears to be a page from the magazine with some text which I can't read - anyone with better eyesight and a better monitor?

Spanked