2014-03-27 MISC: MO

[ChristofferB]

I could see there were 7 tornadoes reported i Northern MO, did anyone go out?

 

[Skip Talbot]

A lot of chasers were out looking at the Spotter Network and hopefully a couple will chime in here with reports, although most were down in southwest MO. There weren't too many tornadoes but I did see this shot posted to Facebook and credited to "Steve of Nebraska Storm Chasers" near Trenton, MO:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?...400.1073741828.562727913821869&type=1&theater

 

[Taylor Wright]

Yesterday's mini chase was actually pretty successful from a logistics standpoint, despite not seeing any tornadoes. It was the first solo chase I've been on in a long time, maybe only the second or third ever. I also got to test out the effectiveness of having my new touchscreen Lenovo Ideapad in passenger seat. I was able to chase for about 4 hours without charging it once. It has the i7 4500-U low voltage processor, which allows it to have up to 9 hours of battery life.

Anyways, I left Lawrence, KS around 1 pm as storms were firing off just to the W and SW of me, just as planned The first cell I was on quickly blew up and dissipated as it seemed to get sheared apart. I dropped south a bit to Baldwin, KS, and caught the next cell, which had much better structure. Followed it east all the way into Lenexa where it developed a nice base and started dropping golf balls. Continued to follow it east to state line around Grandview, MO where it developed a rotating funnel that condensed about half-way to the ground. Despite calling it in, no warning was issued. Radar indicated no rotation, but this thing was definitely rotating. Here's the best pic I could get:

View attachment 8252

Kept going for awhile but it didn't show any more signs of rotation. Eventually I had to head back to Lawrence due to time constraints. Overall successful day because I had signal most of the time, so I used my phone as a hotspot and was able to navigate the storms very well even though I was by myself. If I had more time I probably would have blasted north to catch the cell that was warned, but unfortunately there are these things called "priorities".

 

[Dan Robinson]

Yesterday was a classic "play the better shear" day. In the Midwest, the surface low or its immediate southeast quadrant is almost always the better target than the instability max to the south. The instability axis at the northern end of the setup ended up being wider/deeper than expected, and managed to keep pace as the storms moved eastward, giving the storms a longer window to produce.

The extensive cloud cover over MO early in the day is what kept me from chasing. I wish I had, but in hindsight it is hard to say if I'd make the same call if I could do it over. Central MO was cold for much of the day, and without a full afternoon of sunlight, I didn't expect it to rebound given the March sun angle.

 

[kevin-palmer]

I was watching the tornadic supercell on radar the entire time. The storm seemed unusual to me. It was quite small at 15-20 miles wide. Most of the time it had no visible hook. Only the velocity radar indicated the rotation. It was tornado warned for quite awhile. At one point (not in the screenshots below) it even looked like the mesocyclone was on the northwest side of the storm, but I could be wrong.

According to the NWS, it put down 3 tornadoes which destroyed several houses in and around Trenton http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=eax&storyid=101395&source=0

Did anyone else find this storm unusual? Looking at the reflectivity radar alone it just didn't look like the type of storm that would put down multiple damaging tornadoes.

 

[Skip Talbot]

It was quite small at 15-20 miles wide. Most of the time it had no visible hook.

The radar beam is 9000 feet off the ground when it's scanning over that area, which means you're hitting the midlevels of a low topped storm. The beam is above the part of the storm that is responsible for the hook echo. That's the trouble with that portion of Missouri and areas east of there, there isn't any good low level radar data.

Additionally, mini-supercells and small cells that produce tornadoes (cold core events come to mind) often don't present classic hook echoes, or they're too small or too low for the radar to effectively capture.

 

[kevin-palmer]

That makes sense. Thanks for the explanation.

 

[Chad Alcares]

Chase partner of mine, and friend, Steve Blum from Nebraska Storm Chasers headed out east of St. Joe and was on the tornado producing cell from the west. He never could confirm a condensation funnel all the way to the ground. But had plenty of pics/vids of funnel and wall cloud.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=615489658545694&set=vb.562727913821869&type=2&theater

 

[ruahusker]

Sorry I am a bit late responding to this thread. By dumb luck I ended up chasing on Thursday. I wasn't planning on going out but by mid morning the HRRR was advertising some nice looking discrete cells East of St. Joseph. I managed to "see" all three tornadoes that were confirmed by the NWS-Kansas City. Here is a graphic from them that represents 2 of the 3 tornadoes.





Tornado #1, I never saw a condensation funnel. This thing was wrapped up pretty tight though. This photo was taken at approximately 3:10 PM as I was approaching Interstate 35. I pretty much had eyes on this throughout its evolution and never saw a funnel.




It must have had ground circulation though as I saw construction signs blown over and a truck in the ditch on Interstate 35.




Tornado #2 on the map, I witnessed shortly after it lifted. I was at the intersection of Highway C and Highway 13 looking East. I have video of this that chad posted as well.




Tornado #3 which is not shown on the map above, but is probably the most well known of the three is the Trenton tornado. I captured this right as it was lifting a little ways North of Trenton. The road network was pretty bad so it took me a while to catch up to this one. I was lucky to capture it right at the end.




Overall it was a very memorable chase day. This was my first SPC 2% tornado (at least I believe it was in the 2% risk area). Let me know if you have any questions!

Steve Blum

 

[Austin Jones]

04-27-14

I started chasing immediately after cross country practice, giving me a late start, but it had allowed the storms to come to me. Starting 20 miles north of Columbia Mo in Fayette we immediately shot south as the storm line was just coming over head. The line was tilted back to the west so as we went south we were able to come out ahead of the more southerly storms , our goal was to get in front of the most southern storm and as we approached it from the north the storm went Tornado warned by radar. Going through Columbia and then a few miles further south into Ashland Mo we were able to get a good view of the base, getting a few shots of some messy wall clouds. The wall cloud disappeared and so did the warning for a few minutes. However the wall cloud returned along with another tornado warning, only to fall apart again. We were now in Fulton Mo and decided to head home. Here are a few pictures of the base and wall cloud.

Austin Jones