2/24/11 Reports: TX, OK, KS, MO, AR, LA, TN, KY, MS

[Drew.Gardonia]

I was downtown Nashville at the Shelby Street Bridge attempting to take my new lightning trigger for a test run, when the storms rolled in on myself and Adam Reagan (and 2 other friends that wanted to go along). Torrential rain arrived long before the lightning making photography of the lightning impossible.

Storms went tornado warned (presumably doppler indicated as I never saw any funnels), and were accompanied by torrential rains, high winds, but very little lightning accompanied this storm.

on the drive back to Murfreesboro, came upon bumper to bumper traffic on I-24 @ Bell Rd, where trees were downed on the highway, and debris was all over the place, pulled over and took a few pics, and then caroused into Antioch, TN to see if there was any additional damage as I was getting facebook reports (on my phone) of a speculative tornado that had been spotted in immediate vicinty that went through Antioch and Smyrna (police did not confirm tornado, only stated 70+ mph straight line winds).

found additonal damage in Antioch, trees down, signs ripped off uprights, trees snapped in half and up rooted. No known confirmed touchdowns at this time.


I-24 @ Bell Rd (trees downed on the highway and debris scattered all about)

Signs ripped off uprights @ Hickory Hollow Pkwy and Bell Rd

Tree downed at Hickory Hollow Mall

Tree downed blocking roadway at Curtis Hollow Rd and Mt. View Rd in Antioch, TN

Tree snapped in half at Bell Rd and I-24 in front of US Bank

edit: Just a little amusing post note, while driving down I-24, we were listening to the storm reports coming in over FM radio on a local station and to our amusement, one caller (a lady in her late 30's or early 40's), called in to say she saw the lightning "touch down"....everyone in the car exploded with laughter, that's a new one for me...god I love the general public, they provide me a great deal of entertainment with some of the things they say.

 

[Zack Hargrove]

Well, we sat in Stuttgart, AR for about an hour watching a beautiful Cu field bubble up. We waited for the discrete stuff to start popping... and waited... and waited. But then it was starting to get near sundown and we realized we had to pick a part of the squall to make a play on. Thats when the Lonoke, AR cell went TOR warned and we bolted down I-40 towards it. We actually waited for the storm in Prairie County on the southern part of highway 11 as we couldn't quite get to the Lonoke area in time where the official EF-1 was reported. As we approached the squall we could see many lowerings, but no obvious rotation. We stopped basically right where the rotation on radar passed over us and at one point we saw sheets of rain being blown in two opposite directions and recorded 50-60 mph gusts. I hear that the Little Rock, AR NWS is also going to be investigating damage in Prairie Country with a survey team as well. If it was only and EF-1 we could have easily just been several yards from it if it was rain wrapped. The rain blowing two different directions coupled with the high gusts at the same time lead me believe we were close to SOMETHING fun, if not a tornado.

On the way home, we also passed the two semis blown over West of Nashville and construction barrels were all over the highway with some billboard damage as well.

All in all, it wasn't the greatest chase because we drove all that way only to have one storm to make a serious play on and it was in a squall. Its a shame too because we were set up in a perfect location if the discrete stuff had begun to pop. I just thing the winds were veering in the low levels way too much out in front of the line. The shear values were there and the instability really peaked out more than expected, but they just wouldn't pop. Still had fun with 3 great friends and saw some pretty cool stuff, if briefly.