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2011-05-25 REPORTS: MO/AR/LA/TX/IL/IN/OH/TN/MS/KY

DWest

EF1
Joined
Feb 17, 2010
Messages
80
Location
Steelville, MO
I think it's time for a reports thread given widespread ongoing tornadic activity. I had a bit of a scary experience with one of the supercells moving across east-central Missouri, circulation couplet was about a quarter mile north of my house, and ended up with nothing but some rather strong wind and a bit of quarter sized hail. Anyway, waiting to see what you guys have as far as reports, and hoping everybody is staying safe, especially with these things popping up one behind the other.

 

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My two sons and I intercepted a tornado warned cell that was moving ENE along I40, towards Memphis, TN. Intercept occurred in eastern AR, on highway 79 about 5 miles north of Hughes, AR. Nice couplet on GR3 at times but it never got extremely organized. It wound up and produced funnels during my intercept at least 3 different times, then it occluded and a wound up tight again as it raced off to the ENE from my location.

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Scott Taylor
Marion, AR
 

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After a frustrating day yesterday in OK I hit pay dirt in eastern AR today, seeing probably four tornadoes and finally broke my 2011 pattern of seeing supercells but not tornadoes.

The first tornado was a brief one around 4:50 about 5 miles SSE of Augusta:

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It doesn't show up in this picture, but there was a dust swirl underneath this nub funnel. In fact, I saw the dust swirl first as it spun up perhaps a quarter to half mile to my northeast along route 33. This tornado lasted about 2 minutes.

I couldn't keep up with this storm so I blasted east then south to intercept the next storm down the line, finally catching up just northwest of Greasy Center or about 6 miles north of Hughes.

The second tornado, which I saw at that location, was a nicely backlit rope tornado, or more accurately series of ropes and funnels under a strongly rotating wall cloud, with thin curtains of rain wrapping around the tornado. It lasted 4 or 5 minutes but not sure if it was down that whole time or intermittently on the ground, as new vortices kept forming. My video of this is some of my all-time favorite video and I will post as time for editing permits once I get home. This may be the same tornado Scott saw. Here is a picture:

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I am almost sure that this was not the only tornado that occurred here, though. The tornado above occurred under a new wall cloud as the storm cycled. To the southwest, however, was another, more rain-wrapped meso, which had a large wall cloud with pendant funnels. As this feature got closer (and on a slightly more southerly track), I bailed south, but as I did I noticed a big cloud of dust just to my west. That will get your pedal to the metal, and it did! Once I had blasted south enough to get out of the way, I turned back toward the meso and saw this:

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I think that at least some of the dust was either from an inflow jet or RFD, but with that much dust that close to a large funnel more than halfway to the ground, I think it is very likely that there was some degree of circulation on the ground, so I am calling this a likely tornado also. It may actually have been on the ground longer than the one above, as my view of this one early on was not as good due to the wrapping rain. However, it is at least possible that with this picture, I had two tornadoes at once:

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Note the funnel just left of center in the foreground and the rain-wrapped lowering to its left in the background. Not whether one, neither, or both were on the ground at this time, but it was cool getting both in the picture.

Finally, after I was through chasing and just heading east on I-40 to pick up I-55 to head back toward St. Louis, I saw what I first thought was steam from a smokestack somewhere in the Memphis or West Memphis area. Then I saw a power flash under it, and realized that it was in fact attached to the storm. Absent the power flash and the damage reports from West Memphis, I would never have thought this was a tornado, but I think it probably was - I imagine the NWS will do a damage survey in West Memphis, so we should know for sure in a day or two. Here is a video capture from just after the power flash:

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Got the kind of storms today I was expecting yesterday - discrete, classic supercells - which made for a much more enjoyable chase, even though they were still moving fast enough (45-55 mph) that you had to plan your intercepts carefully.
 
Mods please add OH.

I picked up on the Columbus, IN cell that came up through Franklin County, Indiana. The cell unfortunately underwent a cell merger right as I got in front of it south of Oxford near Millville. Below are the anvil of the original supercell and its forward flank gust front as it merged with another cell to its south:
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Shortly after the merge, the new cell re-cycled and got its low level rotation going. We fell behind due to poor road options in northern Butler county and we couldn't quite get back close to the updraft area. The closest we got again was here:
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It had a pretty HP-ish look to it by the time we got further NE near Middletown. A couple wall cloud reports came in while we were watching it from the west. Thankfully the storm never produced (was over a pretty populated area).

Edit: I stand corrected, it produced a brief tornado near Centerville.
 
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Bill Reid, Chris Gullikson and I saw the Ellsinore, Missouri tornado as it crossed Hwy 60 (pictured) and then as a large wedge further northeast. As it wedged out, there was what appeared to be an occluded updraft to the west of the tornadic mesocyclone with a convective inflow band type feature connecting the two.

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Intercepted this beautiful rotating funnel (hearing reports it actually may have been a tornado that touched down in West Memphis) over the Memphis skyline. It was a bittersweet day as I was dangerously close to it and running video on my 5D-Mark II, when it flashed CARD FULL at me and didn't save any of my video :( Oh well, there will be more. These snapshots I took while I was videoing were the only thing I had saved. Chase cam froze up and I didn't get anything off of it either. bittersweet day.

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edit: After consulting with a photographer friend I was able to recover the lost video through an online service (amazingly!) and here's some screenshots I took from the lost video (won't have the video for a few days and it cost me $79) but here's the extra pics!

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NWS Memphis is calling it a "Beaver Tail"

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2011/may/25/ominous-clouds-over-memphis-no-reports-severe-weat/

I don't care what they say, that thing was rotating, and once I get the video it should show it.


edit #2:


here's the video from my perspective (the east side of downtown). this is the video I thought was lost from my camera, that I was able to recover.

Watch video >


you can see a full hi-def video here as well

http://smu.gs/j2f5Wy
 
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Congratulations to those of you who were in the right place at the right time. I wish that had been my story yesterday, but LB LaForce and I busted in central Illinois. I have to say, it felt good just to finally hit the road and chase after being frustratingly hamstrung during a wildly tornadic season overall. But it would have been nice to have seen a tornado or two.

I found this system difficult to pick a target for because there were a number of possibilities. My initial target was Effingham, IL, which I figured to be a good choice for scroonching farther south, or east or west along I-70. With the H5 jet pointed toward IN, I felt inclined toward Terre Haute. But clearing coming from Missouri suggested that better instability would build in from the west, which SPC mesoscale graphics corroborated. As storms began to move in from MO, it seemed prudent to go for those. I was hoping that the cells out ahead of an organizing squall line would fire up into tornado-breeders, but they never could seem to get their acts together. Very noncommital. We'd see some cells take on a nice, telltale shape and develop rotation couplets, but eventually they'd crap out, and outflow-dominant was the theme of the party for us.

Eventually we began working our way back east in order to outrun the intensifying squall line and try to intercept a promising-looking storm moving up from the south. As we did so, the area from Indianapolis southward in Indiana began to light up with discrete supercells. The jet core was evidently nosing into that area, where a nice moisture axis had also been working in, and the result was some very pretty-looking storms, at least on radar. I KNEW we should have gone for the blasted jet, but do I ever listen to myself?

Again, I found this system difficult to target because there seemed to be multiple possibilities. Some of them excluded themselves simply by being out of range. But if I'd built in an extra hour for departure time, we could have probably gotten in on the action near Saint Louis. My bad. Or again, if we'd simply headed for the H5 jet/moisture plume in IN, we'd have at least gotten some decent structure. As it was, yesterday's notch on my belt is nothing more than one more squall line. I will say this, though: it was one heck of a squall line. I had to pull over on a couple of occasions due to the severity of the wind and the low visibility wrought by driving rain and mist. Radar showed areas of embedded rotation near us at different times and even on top of us once, but we never saw any evidence of it, just hellacious straight-line winds. Made me think of the Great Lakes superbomb last October: tornadically active but impossible to pinpoint where and when a tornado would occur. NWS issued warnings that took in huge north-south sections--maybe not very practical, but what else could they do given that kind of scenario.
 
For various reasons, I decided to play the warm front up north. After being less than impressed with the cluster of storms riding the front through IN into OH, I thought I might check out some of the more discrete cells popping up in e IN and w OH. Competition was fierce between cells as quite a few tried to get established at the same time. After watching a few intensify and die, I finally intercepted a promising storm that quickly went supercellular in north central OH. Unfortunately, the large complex of storms coming in from Indiana caught up to it just as the meso got organized and seemed close to producing. It was a beautiful storm regardless and pretty nice by Ohio standards.

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Woke up in Little Rock and targeted Pine Bluff. Before we got to the target storms started going up and we chased a cell into the mountains that looked great but couldn't exactly stay on it. Then hopped down the line of supercells, each producing pretty incredible structure, hail, high winds and a lot of rotation. However, we didn't see any produce and witnesses a lot of false tornado reports, particularly in SE Mo. Overall it was a fairly disappointing and difficult chase day even though there were tornadoes. We eventually made our way down to West Memphis and the Memphis supercell which was just flat out awesome even though it didn't produce. We thought at one point a wedge was going to drop down right over the I-55/I-240 exchange but luckily that didn't happen. This cell probably had the best structure I've ever seen. We did have to punch the core to get to the wall cloud and the winds in this storm were incredible. Watched numerous semi trucks ride on 9 wheels until they finally decided to start parking until the storm passed. Also hit some golfballs heading down I-55 just before getting into West Memphis.
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Good day all,

I chased the area today (5-25) southeast of St Louis, Missouri. Caught a small tornado near Fredricktown, MO near Highway 67.

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Above: This WAS a tornado, because damage to trees and a gas station was observed shortly after in Fredricktown.

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Above: Same mesocyclone north of Fredricktown, moving rapidly NE. Note the RFD clear slot.
 
After my bust in NC Oklahoma the day before, I targeted Poplar Bluff, MO as my starting point for high risk #2. I attempted two intercepts from my starting point at the intersection of US 60 and US 67 in Poplar Bluff.

The first cell originated to my SW near Melbourne, AR around 1:45 p.m. It eventually became TOR-warned as it approached the MO-AR border. In what proved to be a costly mistake, I decided to move SW down US 67 and US 160 toward the town of Doniphan, MO, and then a bit further west on MO 142 toward the town of Gatewood. As I arrived, the storm's base was just to my north, but I was unable for to get a clear view due to the seemingly endless tree line of the Mark Twain National Forest. Instead of turning around, I foolishly opted to head north on tiny County Road V, which only took me deeper into the hills and forest. I eventually reached US 160 again, and twisted and turned my way back down to Doniphan.

By this time the cell was producing near Grandin, MO and, a bit further to the NE, it put down the Ellsinore tornado. I had no chance of catching it at this point, but several skilled chasers bagged this reclusive beast amid the trees near Ellsinore and Greenville, including Mike Brady and the Bill Reid/Brian Morganti group. Nick Nolte outdid everyone, though, capturing great footage of this tornado from a clearing near Ellsinore. His video was deservedly highlighted by TWC the next day.

I dejectedly regrouped back near Poplar Bluff and waited for the next storm to my SE, which became TOR-warned around 4:50 p.m. I positioned myself a bit south of town on MO 52, where I had a good view to the west. The following pictures show the storm as it passed just west of Poplar Bluff. Paducah's LSRs show that several funnels and a brief tornado were reported between 5:10 and 5:20 p.m., but as Brandon Clement noted in his posting above, it's not clear that this storm was ever tornadic. The view here is to the NW.

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I then headed after the cell by moving east on US 60. I was briefly hammered by RFD - see picture below - but the storm soon lost most of its rotation on radar. With little to show for my efforts, I then called it a day and headed home up I-55.

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Sandwiched by studying Chemistry, I was able to get out and chase a little bit here in central IN. Right after work there was a nice looking cell developing south of Indy, so I decided to head down for it. While I was on the way it developed a nice looking hook, and I was starting to get frustrated with slower traffic! Then in the next few scans the cell all but disappeared! Not sure if it hit a cap or what, as instability seemed to be fine in this area according to the RUC soundings. Either way, I went back home and did my homework, then after I finished checked the radar and saw a couple tornado warned cells to the south. I headed towards the one coming through Martinsville, but it got cut off by the cell south of it just as it began to look good. Cell after cell had this same issue. I followed this same cell for a while as it seemed to be trying to recycle, but with data issues I didn't know if I should continue to follow it or not, and I was in heavy rain for part of the time and couldn't see anything. The only cell that stayed discrete was well to the south, and in a bad area for chasing. It produced a tornado in Bedford, and I finally caught it as it came through Greensburg. As I approached I could tell by the radar that outflow had taken over, so I wasn't expecting to see a tornado. However, those winds were howling, and I was able to just barely scoot north to avoid the strongest winds. As I came back through Greensburg I noticed extensive damage to a neighborhood and several power poles snapped and knocked over. I thought at the time that it was due to straight line winds, but come to find out there had been a tornado in this area earlier in the evening! At that point it was well past sunset, so I called it a night and went home.
 
A meteorologist from the area and myself ended up chasing in S. Illinois.

We initially chased several cells in the St. Louis to Litchfield, IL area, but they all weakened while we were on them.

We then decided to make a play on the final tor warned supercell heading into the St. Louis area...the one which produced the very large hail. We missed the hail by under a mile. We ended up with a wall cloud and a brief needle funnel near Pontoon Beach, a suburb of STL on the Illinois side.

We where about to call it a day after this until a discrete cell out in Southeast Illinois caught our eye. After racing east on I-64, we intercepted the cell near Enfield, IL. There were srtong winds(50-60mph) on the north side of what was now a tor warned supercell. We didn't get on the southern side of the cell until we reached the Carmi, IL. Along the way of following it up to Mt. Carmel, it had a decent lowering and a wall cloud as it passed Crossville, IL. The main QCLS was approaching from the west, so we called it a day, but not before getting slammed by 55-65mph winds while sitting in Mt. Carmel, knocking out power to the part of town we were in.
 
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