Dan Robinson
EF5
On Thursday, with decent expectations I originally targeted the core of the strong MCV that had managed to clear out and allow some weak destabilization (just over 500j/kg CAPE). I picked up a storm that developed in the southeast quadrant of the MCV at Dardenne Prairie, MO (western STL metro). It was outflow dominant and looked pretty pathetic:
When new storms started going up in much better instability to the southeast (1500j/kg), I agonized on which ones to choose. The MCV storm was in an excellent vorticity environment, but was moving into weaker instability. The storms to the south would have mostly uninterrupted access to the better CAPE, so I left the MCV storm. The MCV storm went on to produce the nice tornado about an hour later at Owaneco, IL (east of I-55, just southeast of Springfield).
This was yet another day that proved the worth of the Midwest as a chaseable alternative to the Plains, especially during marginal patterns. Although I missed the tornado by choosing the wrong storm, I had a good chance of seeing one this day, equal to that if I'd gone to the Plains for the week.
More images at:
http://stormhighway.com/blog2013/may913a.shtml
When new storms started going up in much better instability to the southeast (1500j/kg), I agonized on which ones to choose. The MCV storm was in an excellent vorticity environment, but was moving into weaker instability. The storms to the south would have mostly uninterrupted access to the better CAPE, so I left the MCV storm. The MCV storm went on to produce the nice tornado about an hour later at Owaneco, IL (east of I-55, just southeast of Springfield).
This was yet another day that proved the worth of the Midwest as a chaseable alternative to the Plains, especially during marginal patterns. Although I missed the tornado by choosing the wrong storm, I had a good chance of seeing one this day, equal to that if I'd gone to the Plains for the week.
More images at:
http://stormhighway.com/blog2013/may913a.shtml
