01/10/2008 REPORTS: LA/MS/AL/TN

[Terry Tyler]

today was pretty scary man...i was out on the tornado warned storms in union county, prentiss county and lee county...

the clouds were sooo deep...like, i couldent see any storm features and the only way i had to recieve warning information was from my NWR...we left auburn sometime around 1PM towards the severe storms coming out of pontotoc, and went north on hwy 45...i couldent see much, and i knew that if i got into somethin scary, i was gonna go south really fast...

it was only a severe warning when i left, but when i got there, the NWR was blaring a tornado warning...take a look here...this is right near the area it was supposed to be, and you can even see some storm spotters and cops on the bridge...i saw what looked to be a bowl-shaped wall cloud or some kind of suspicious lowering...

since we were right in the heart of the warning area i wasnt sure what to expect...

i come north of baldwyn and the whole damn town was out of power, and cops were all over the place setting up and whatnot...it was scary...

when that NWR started blaring, and hard rain started coming down, stating that the tornado was just near freindship and platt...i started getting scared, because i was right there...i was right where they said the tornado was, and i had 0 visibility with rain coming down...i honestly didnt know if i was fixin to see the core, with the updraft right behind it or what...

the mac donalds, the gas stations...the whole town had no power, and people were outside lookin at the sky...i didnt know what was happening, and i was scared i might make the wrong decision and get seriously injured or something...especially with the knowledge that there were potentially killer storms out there...

i ended up staking out on a highway overpass and going to where i felt comfortable viewing the storm...i ended up going back north up the highway, and i saw what looked like a wall cloud...it was NNE of me, and leaving fast so i tried to snap a shot before it got below the treeline...

this is what i saw...

i couldent say it was a wall cloud %100 because of the large amount of cloud cover in the area, but that was definatly the storm, and it did kind of look like one...there was also a tornado report that came from this storm near new harmony...i really tried to keep up with the storm, but quite frankly i didnt want to risk following it...i was pretty scared, because i didnt know if there was one behind it or not, and this 55+MPH storm really wasnt playing no games...

coming home, turning on the news and seeing nothing but caledonia coverage really put into perspective the whole magnitude of what i was really getting myself into...

a scary day to be sure...i was shaking pretty hard for a minute...

 

[Tony Laubach]

COMPLETE JANUARY 10, 2008 STORM CHASE LOG HERE!!!

Based upon the emails, phone calls, and texts I received yesterday, I suppose I was the last person they figured on hearing a report from. Regardless, here it is!

Without question, this was the craziest, and certainly one of the moost memorable and fun chases I have ever had! It was also my first involving a plane ride! Unfortunately the weather was less than good for chasing, but that's the only part of this trip I would call a bust!

Woke up at 6:30am on Wednesday and went to work... at 6ish that evening, I called my lady to ask her to give me a ride to the airport as I had decided to head out to chase Thursday's setup. At 12:30am, I was off to Atlanta where I landed, rented my vehicle, and headed out. Just shy of 900 miles later, I was back in Atlanta in the slummest Super 8 hotel I have ever seen catching a quick four hours of sleep before waking up and catching a flight back to Denver to get to work by 9am this morning. And guess what, I clocked in at 9:02am!

Weather-wise, a plethra of tornado-warned cells were intercepted, including an accidental intercept of a benign tornado warned cell in the grundge as I passed east through Birmingham, AL on the way back to Atlanta. I had a few moments of tension as I was trying to identify the very turbulent rotation behind the trees near Raleigh, Mississippi early afternoon. And while it gave me the only weather-related shot of the entire trip, it was nothing more than a wall cloud when I was finally able to see.

What I saw, a wall cloud, a ton of rain, 2 Mellow Yellows (the soda I'll always break my diet for), and more trees than I can count!

I think the clouds not breaking is what ultimately did us in. While there were a ton of severe storms and a decent number of reported tornadoes, including the biggies in northern Mississippi, I believe a much different situation would've come to light had the clouds broken. On top of limiting the instability, it made it very difficult to chase in general. Storms were impossible to see and at times, it was difficult to tell what was the storm and what was the grunge. One perk of the clouds, it seemed to hide the true speeds of the storms. I am venturing to say storm motion was much slower than forecast, and certainly much slower than the NWS warnings were saying. At no point did I really feel I was racing after storms. Most of my driving around storms was a result of me trying to find a better view. The Raleigh storm I was on, I had enough time to get from the interstate down there, then circle back up to intercept the storm moving through Jackson, MS. I eventually broke off that storm and ventured back south into Alabama to intercept the slew of tornado-warned cells down there. By then, the overall situation was becoming a mess, and it was obvious there wasn't much more to see. I called it a day in Butler, AL and returned to Atlanta having the one brief thrill near Birmingham before packing it in for the night.

COMPLETE JANUARY 10, 2008 STORM CHASE LOG HERE!!!

COMPLETE JANUARY 10, 2008 STORM CHASE LOG HERE!!!

I have to say thanks to Diedra Mears, Verne Carlson, and Dann Cianca for their nowcasting throughout the afternoon. Also have to say thanks to the many who were virtually chasing with me! I had many laughs at the remarks by friends who saw me on spotter network and thought I "hacked" the system to put my icon out there! It was a great time! These are the chasing adventures I enjoy the most simply because of the story. Yeah, the weather wasn't great, but ya know what... its ONLY January! On top of the wild adventure which wrapped up 3300 mile between flying and driving (only 891 will count toward my stats), I got to test drive a brand new 2008 Dodge Grand Caravan to which I doubled the miles on the van when I checked it out. I absolutely LOVED that ride... good gas mileage (24 plus), all-wheel drive, and I paid a whopping $30 for the day's rental! And for those "perfect folks" of the chaser police, I made every effort possible to have it in the same BEAUTIFUL condition I checked it out in.

I'm more than happy that I was able to get out, enjoy the countryside, and break my no-soda diet with TWO Mellow Yellows! Its hard to complain about the weather when you're just able to get out this early in the year! My adventure surrounding all of it was worth its weight in gold!