John Farley
Supporter
I stayed just ahead of a supercell from Shelbina, MO to Hannibal, MO. I came north into Shelbina just before the storm got there, then was able to stay ahead of it on route 36 as it moved east at a leisurely (by this year's standards, anyway) 20-30 mph. Here is how the storm looked at 5:23 p.m. near or a little east of Monroe City:
The storm produced numerous reports of hail and mostly minor wind damage, until it reached Hannibal, where it pulsed up, perhaps as it crossed the warm front, and produced serious structural damage to several homes and other buildings on the southwest side of Hannibal. I was videotaping the storm from about 10 miles east of Hannibal looking southwest at the time this damage occurred, 6:11-6:13. Here is a capture:
I will post video to Youtube tomorrow, hopefully. There is a very pronounced forward surge of what appears to be a rainfoot but some of it might be dust, and scud forms on top of it and gets sucked up toward the wall cloud ahead of it, which itself was a product of a similar process a few minutes earlier. I would think from the video that it is a very intense microburst, but in the video linked below, a person whose house was largely destroyed describes an abrupt switch of wind direction, so I suppose there could have been a tornado in there somewhere-or maybe it was just an abrupt switch from inflow to outflow. I did notice that occurring pretty fast a couple times just ahead of the storm. In any case, here is the link to the TV story:
http://www.wgem.com/Global/story.asp?S=14879670
I did see a tour group viewing the storm east of Hannibal, so maybe they will have some thoughts on what it was - kind of surprised to see a tour group that far east today. I will get a full report posted as possible, and again will try to get the video up tomorrow, depending of course on how early I need to head out for tomorrow's chase.
Edit - Here's the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5T4kwAmiVM
Edit 2 - Full report now available at:
http://www.johnefarley.com/chase60911.htm

The storm produced numerous reports of hail and mostly minor wind damage, until it reached Hannibal, where it pulsed up, perhaps as it crossed the warm front, and produced serious structural damage to several homes and other buildings on the southwest side of Hannibal. I was videotaping the storm from about 10 miles east of Hannibal looking southwest at the time this damage occurred, 6:11-6:13. Here is a capture:

I will post video to Youtube tomorrow, hopefully. There is a very pronounced forward surge of what appears to be a rainfoot but some of it might be dust, and scud forms on top of it and gets sucked up toward the wall cloud ahead of it, which itself was a product of a similar process a few minutes earlier. I would think from the video that it is a very intense microburst, but in the video linked below, a person whose house was largely destroyed describes an abrupt switch of wind direction, so I suppose there could have been a tornado in there somewhere-or maybe it was just an abrupt switch from inflow to outflow. I did notice that occurring pretty fast a couple times just ahead of the storm. In any case, here is the link to the TV story:
http://www.wgem.com/Global/story.asp?S=14879670
I did see a tour group viewing the storm east of Hannibal, so maybe they will have some thoughts on what it was - kind of surprised to see a tour group that far east today. I will get a full report posted as possible, and again will try to get the video up tomorrow, depending of course on how early I need to head out for tomorrow's chase.
Edit - Here's the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5T4kwAmiVM
Edit 2 - Full report now available at:
http://www.johnefarley.com/chase60911.htm
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