Terry Tyler
EF5
Intercepted a good storm just east of Demopolis, AL. This is the same storm that wound up heading towards Selma, TN with that nasty looking couplet. Tried my best to keep up, but it was moving too fast. Plus, when it started to move right a little bit, it was straddling the highway meaning the only way to it was through it. I quit following it because every time i seemed to make a little progress forward. Id come into some town and have to slow down to 35, plus the traffic was pretty bad. After making no progress for 25 minutes i abandoned the storm and headed to the storm heading for Meridian, MS that later became tornado warned as well.
I had a good vantage point and watched it for about 25 mins, 5 mins before the tornado warning was issued. After a while it looked like it was going outflow dominant and had a huge shelf cloud of some kind on front.
I made a decision i kind of regret, but at the same time i dont. I went into the core of the storm to see what kind of hail it had, and what kind of winds because thats what appeared to be the main threat. Had i not done that and got on 80 and flew east, i might have been able to stay ahead of the storm long enough to see a tornado develop.
Most of the stones were golf ball size, but i swear to God i saw what had to have been atleast a baseball size stone fall about 20 yards away near a ditch. There wasnt a whole lot of hail, it was embeded in the rain and after the hail hit, it was just a really hard rain. I ran out there and tried to find it for about 5 or 10 minutes, but i couldent. I got soaked from my shoes to my billfold and had to settle for some of the better looking stones around the area.
As far as the meridian storm, it provided more as far as its upper-features then what i saw when i got closer. I made contact right as the sun was going down and it was a race against time to get south of it to where i could see it and get a good picture. But, the storm split...one cell took off flying to the northeast, and this one went south. I got some quarter sized hail id say, and some phenomenal winds. I was filling up my gas, and i was parked at the center pump. The winds were blowing so hard, horizontal rain was almost about to go into my gas tank.
This is what it looked like, severe warned about 45 minutes before i went in there.
Great day, sure hope anyone else who went out got something good. You can read the big assed report and see larger, higher-quality photos on my website.
http://www.xanga.com/midsouthchaser
-Terry
