2014-04-27 REPORTS: IA KS OK TX NE MO AR MS AL TN

[Joey Ketcham]

I wasn't planning on chasing since I'm sick with a very bad cold, but decided to chase the tornado warned storm in Jasper County, MO and stayed on it for a while. Didn't see any tornadic activity associated with it, but did get some small hail and gusty winds.

I know that both Quapaw OK and Baxter Springs, KS took a hit by the same storm and destroyed a fire station in Quapaw and also had 2 fatalities there. Significant damage is reported in Baxter Springs, KS.

 

[Matt Hunt]

I ended up getting on the Baxter Springs tornado from a distance on the south side of Joplin. I started the day targeting just east of KC, but the AM convection that went through killed the chances up there, so I ended up heading south. I watched the Cu field build in NE Oklahoma, and at first these storms struggled to get going. I was actually targeting the cell south of Joplin, when I saw a funnel on the storm further west. After filming that tornado until it dissipated, I got onto the storm to the south. It had a big inflow tail on it, and some decent RFD wrapping around, but I don't think it ever produced. I lost it to the north at one point, and saw a large lowering, but I couldn't confirm whether or not it was on the ground. Overall a pretty good chase, especially after some early frustration, and thinking I'd bust.

http://youtu.be/epOmFaTvKxs

 

[Rick Schmidt]

2014-04-27 REPORTS: KS OK TX NE MO AR

Tim Metz and I saw at least 1 or more tornadoes and several funnels this afternoon near Prescott, Ks. It produced scattered rural damage, and in our brief view of it from less than a mile away, it exhibited violent motion. We were close enough to it to hear the 'waterfall' sound. On a hunch, we headed for the clearing south of KC, and waited for convection......it paid off! I will post a couple of pics tomorrow.

 

[JeremyS]

Chased in s.central and central Nebraska after all the morning and early afternoon crap killed any chances further east in eastern Nebraska. Targeted the dry line and just east of the low pressure. Was too late to see the tornado near Minden, NE that was at the tail end of a line of storms on the dry line. A lone supercell developed about 30 miles east and was moving due north vs northwest like the other cells. Storm wasn't doing much other than producing up to golf ball sized hail, when suddenly it formed a nice wall cloud southwest of York, NE. Wall cloud became pretty large and started to slowly rotate before it fell apart after about 5 minutes. Continued with the storm north as it moved west of York, NE(there are always tornadoes around that town!) and saw a brief tornado near Bradshaw and saw another tornado that suddenly appeared out of the rain west of Osceola, NE that lasted about 2 minutes before disappearing again. Overall not a bad chase after my optimism was extremely low earlier today

 

[Aaron Kafton]

I had to chase as far as 5 feet from my desk to shoot this storm. Shot facing west from my porch on Central City Rd in Joplin Mo. This is the tornado that hit Baxter Springs KS.

I have the rest of what I shot today on my flickr.

 

[Austin Jones]

I quite possibly saw the Linn County Ks tornado in its final rope stage for just a few seconds in the distance from a position near and south east of Archie Mo. Then saw a messy wall cloud develop in front of the rope and then the entire storm fell apart. I saw several other chasers in that position including a fire truck, was anyone there? and can you help confirm the rope?

 

[Rick Schmidt]

We saw a rope tornado dissipate, looking north from our position from about 4 miles away. I only have video of this. I cannot confirm that this is the same tornado that we saw, because we lost sight of it through the trees for a few minutes.

 

[Donnie Beasley]

Chased near home in Central Arkansas. Best pic I could get of the storm right after it went through Vilonia (Enhanced the lighting when I developed, it was after dark). A very sobering night as I'm sure you have all heard.

 

[Ashley]

We were actually on the storm that produced the tornado that hit Quapaw and Baxter Springs. We were following one that dissipated just a little north of Vinita, OK.. decided to go to Joplin from there but keep an eye on the storm blowing just east of us along I44, took highway 2 and then HWY 10/59 east..came into Miama, decided the storm was worth a quick shot to see what will come of it, continued up to Commerce, OK, decided nothing was going to probably come of it and decided to get on I44 and hit a storm that was showing rotation around Grove, OK.. started onto State Highway 69A heading south and just as we turned onto that road we noticed the inflow bands, storm started showing rotation and i think in less then 4 minutes we had a confirmed tornado on the ground south if E 50 Rd/Rte 66/ hwy 69. Watched it going NE cross over E 50 Rd/Rte 66/ hwy 69, actually going over a family in a Minivan (They were unharmed, just shakin up) then up into and through the heart of Quapaw then onto Baxter Springs where that town took a direct hit also, from there it moved just NE and dissipated. I think we were the first ones to call it in, we have pictures and video from the rotation begging, the funnel begging to form. And then just brief video of it moving through Quapaw. We were unable to get video of its final stage, once it was a true rope tornado, at that point it had gone through Baxter Springs and we were trying to help people out. We have video from about 10 -20 seconds after it had went though Quapaw and Baxter Springs of the damage. All the video needs to be edited a bit, once its done i'll post it up. Incredible to think those people had no warning at all. The storm wasn't even sever warned and honestly, may not have actually been sever really until it had already produced the tornado. We got it called in as quickly as possible, but by the time the report had been bounced around, damage was done. My heart goes out to the people in those towns.

 

[Taylor Wright]

After a long day and what we thought was a bust, we headed south from Carrolton, MO to catch cells firing off the dryline in southeast Kansas as our last hope in getting a tornado. Before we were even able to see any real structure, we could see a funnel cloud about 15 miles off in the distance. Miraculously, we arrived in Butler, MO just in time to catch it drop a wedge off to our southwest. It was on the ground for at least a couple of minutes. I wasn't able to get good picture/video due to the crappy terrain and we didn't have the VG-10. Quite a successful day after what looked like would be a pretty dismal one at 4 pm.

EDIT: I've read some other reports that say that tornado was just north of Fort Scott, which is in Kansas, so it must have been farther west of me than initially thought, although I could see it pretty clearly. I'm not really sure about the conditions at the time, as my laptop was being used solely for radar and we had not had a decent internet connection for quite some time. It looked like it could have been somewhat violent for a short period. It was on the ground for a couple of minutes, went up, then came back down as a wedge for a few more until we lost visual. Here's the best still I could get from the crappy video I got.

 

[Chad Alcares]

Planned on playing the cold core setup for 3 days prior to the event. Woke up to thunder in Lincoln Nebraska at 6 am - widespread thunderstorms had pretty much scoured out the eastern Nebraska play. Watched from home as the dry line bulge continued marching northeast and the warm front/outflow boundary looked stalled near the Nebraska border. Watched storms form on satellite/radar in arc from North Platte to Kearney, but my area of interest was north of Concordia, south of York as it appeared that the outflow had enhanced a more easterly componenent to winds there. With cold core it's all about the low levels. Leave house at 2:45, drive to York by 3:30... set up 1 mile south of York, NE and watch the storm move north paralleling US 81. The storm tried a wall cloud to my southwest, which moved to my west and dissapated. At that point I realized that it had reformed a much stronger lower wall cloud to its northwest - which is when this timelapse video began. I drove west of York on US 81 then took US 34 for about half mile to mile west of there to watch the wall cloud move left to right to my west. I stayed back to see the structure so did not see the spinups underneath the wall cloud. This storm continued north towards Stromsburg, but another storm was forming to the southeast so I decided to break from the Stromsburg storm to get close to the southeast storm... as I got closer to the southeast storm, it weakend and got sucked into the inflow of the Stromsburg storm. Seeing that happen, called off chase in time for supper at Casey's for a pepperoni pizza. Those who followed this storm north eventually saw a rain wrapped tornado near Stromsburg. Good cold core type of day... nice crisp storms.

http://youtu.be/4xUbjO9fe_A

 

[ChristianT]

Chased mostly in Texas for the day. Headed up I-30 to Texarkana and went into Arkansas a little bit and the battery in our car died. We were able to get jumped and made it to Wal-mart to get a new one. Went from there back up to Highway 82 and turned north into Oklahoma trying to get close to the Hugo, Oklahoma storm. When it was apparent that it was moving to fast and not wanting to get further into the mountains, we turned back. Very disappointing until the very end. Caught the supercell that had been severe warned since Ellis County near Pittsburg, Texas and observed a rapidly rotating wall cloud as it moved across the highway. Followed it north and decided real quick to turn around and take an east route. While driving back south, we saw what at first appeared to be scud extremely low to the ground but as we approached we could see it was actually a small landspout tornado. Couldn't have been more than 100 yards from it and it dissipated before I even got a real good picture of it. Finally we took highway 11 toward Daingerfield where we watched the storm move to the northeast. Fairly frustrating but we got a nice consolation prize at the end. Super upsetting about what happened in Arkansas and Oklahoma though.

 

[Darren Addy]

Firstly, My heart goes out to all those who lost property and loved ones elsewhere in the outbreak on Sunday. Kudos to the first responders, as well.

No real damage I've heard of in Nebraska. I was pretty happy with my chase day on Sunday from a planning/targeting/adjusting viewpoint. Looking at the set-up, my hope/plan was to chase eastern Nebraska and be far enough away from the powerful low that I could get a storm going South to North and avoid a lot of stair-stepping. As it turns out, the Omaha NWS CWA got rained out and their envirionment stabilized so that they would not get the previously expected "Round 2" in the late afternoon/evening. So my Plan B was to go as far east as I could, where I knew the upper air support would be more likely, but not so far as where it had rained earlier in the day.

I first went to Aurora, NE and then decided to go on to York. There I did more research. At that point, I didn't see a lot of "good stuff" happening until closer to the 0z hr and planned to make Beatrice my next stop. Rather than go east on I80 to Lincoln and then south, I elected to go south out of York on Hwy 81 to maybe take a look at storm that had just popped across the border in KS and would be coming my way. I caught up with it at Shickley, NE and let it slide by. I figured I would tail it North on the country road. West of Shickley I found a fair amount of dime to nickel-sized hail in the fields and on the roadway.

I continued to tail the storm north until I got west of Geneva and then I decide to cut across and get back on Hwy 81. The storm didn't appear to be doing much and I even let it go as I took some pics of the Courthouse square in Geneva. I learned via Forecast Discussion that OAX thought there would be no later show there, so I just decided to stay on the storm I was on. I played catch-up on Hwy 81 as I got near York the storm appeared to be getting interesting (to say the least).

A short time later it appears to be producing:

To be honest, I couldn't see this clearly in real time and only going back through my stills did it become evident. (I saw someone on the SPC report that it briefly touched down and he had video evidence. Don't know who that was yet). The tornado location was approx. 5 miles north of Bradshaw and 7 miles west of York, NE.

Resumed chasing it north, now on rural roads. It became tornado warned by the Hastings NWS ("radar indicated tornado", which I'm guessing was the one back north of Bradshaw. About 20 minutes later, it produced again, this time NW of Osceola, NE with an "elephant trunk" extending out of the rain curtains. I barely got video and a couple of snaps taken of it before it disappeared into the rain curtains.

With the Platte River approaching I gave up on the storm at Silver Creek after tailing it nearly due south to due north for approximately 65 miles.

I thought my best image of the day didn't even have a tornado in it:
(UPDATE: This image was invited to Flickr EXPLORE... whoo-hoo!)

So, with only three (brief) tornadoes reported in Nebraska all day (and two of them on the storm that picked me) I was pretty pleased to have gotten both of them. A fun chase day, no towns in Nebraska destroyed, and less than a tank of gas round trip.

For those interested, my Flickr photostream is here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pixelsmithy/

 

[Hank Schyma]

2014-04-27 REPORTS: MS AL TN

Here's The Louisville Meso, Tornado & Damage. While assisting victims a second training supercell started dropping smaller tornadoes. Nightmare scenario!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlzJ7VbMQZQ

 

[Mike Marz]

Few pics from the iPhone of central Nebraska chase. Pretty depressing to see the morning convection crush our original 10 hatch play in Eastern NE earlier. Going from strong tornado possibilities to low topped cold core event was not the ideal case when we left Minneapolis Sunday morning. Overall it wasn't an awful day, except that we didn't get to film the tube that barely peaked out of the rain from our angle, it was too quick for us.