2014-04-28 REPORTS: AL AR IL IN KY MO LA MS TN

[Rob Gardner]

I assume this thread is for 4-28, if not mods please move my post. Also add Illinois to the thread.

Had to stay close to home and decided to chase the linear mess in Illinois. The southern most storm of the line started exhibiting fairly consistent rotation and maintained a decent inflow notch as it moved north east into Central Illinois. Made the decision to leave home and intercept around Sullivan. As the line moved closer it started to bow and become outflow dominant, but the notch managed to hold its own within the line. We initially intercepted it about 4miles north and 2 miles east of Sullivan. Noticed some weak inflow, and some disorganized rotation. After following it east and north a few miles in each direction, the structure dramatically improved, as did the rotation. Inflow winds started to pick up to around 40-50 mph. At this point we saw a brief spin up of debris off to our west about 2 miles. Probably lasted all of 15 seconds, and was done before we could call it in. Almost immediately thereafter they issued a tornado warning for the area. The wall cloud rotated for probably another 2-3 minutes without any additional debris or funnels before the storm went completely outflow dominant and fizzled.

Didn`t grab a good camera when I left, so all I got was an iphone picture. It`s really hard to see the debris in the picture compared to what we saw in person. The rapid movement of the debris both laterally and in rotation makes me pretty confident there was a very brief touch down. Not sure if anyone else was in the area at the time but did not see anyone else report anything. Ironically it was at this time there was a storm spotter not too far from our location looking straight south at low level clouds while the wall cloud was to their northwest....

 

[Joe Pudlik]

Once again ended up playing the northern target in SE. IA and W-C. IL...The only noteworthy occurrence was several rounds of non-severe hail.

http://www.turbulentstorm.com/1/post/2014/04/april-28th-2014-sw-iowaw-c-illinois-chase.html

 

[Skip Talbot]

Jenn Brindley Ubl and I had a very intense chase in northern Mississippi and western Alabama. Initial target was Tupelo, MS and we arrived just in time to see a wedge tornado coming up from behind us. Due to the thick forests, our chase strategy of intercepting storms as they crossed the interstate at interchanges left us with few intercept points and little time to work with storms, and warranted a prompt escape from the Tupelo tornado. We found ourselves in the path of the NE moving tornado and took an E escape down the interstate. We were buffeted by some pretty intense RFD in the process but made it away from the storm without incident. Next we waited in Hamilton, AL for another supercell to come up from the southwest. Our perch turned out to be a bit too far to make out what was happening underneath the base, but contrast was not good on the storm anyway. Afterwards we made an attempt to intercept the Columbus, MS tornado and supercell but arrived at dusk just as it was gusting out so we called the chase. Trees were down all over the highways so we couldn't get into Columbus and had to backtrack to Fayette, AL for the night. Easily one of my most intense tornado intercepts. Here's our video account of the chase. Chase log coming soon.

Watch video >

 

[Dan Robinson]

Yet another case of "tornado-outbreak-somewhere-else-but-slight-tornado-risk-at-home" again influenced my decision to not travel out of my immediate home area. A somewhat better setup for tornadoes than we saw the previous day in the St. Louis area would be present, so for me it was a no-brainer to save my travel funds and chase locally.

I made the first intercept of the day near Hawk Point, Missouri. The storm rapidly intensified right overhead, with fast rising/horizontal cloud motion converging into a deepening HP notch. However, I lost the storm quickly due to the torrential precip overtaking me on the winding, curvy roads west of Highway 61 at Moscow Mills. With no other options to keep up and with new storms moving into the heart of the STL metro area, I let this first storm go. I jumped back down to I-70 east and scurried downtown to meet the tail-end storm moving up along I-44.

I moved up I-55 in Illinois to stay with an area of rotation that began showing up on radar. Eventually a hook and visually distinct HP notch developed at Edwardsville, and the storm became tornado warned as the circulation tightened. From this point onward, the storm maintained a fairly continuous HP structure, rotation and notch. I struggled to keep up with it by stairstepping on the county road grid, all the way to Sullivan. On the way there, I gained several views of features inside the notch of the storm. I observed some weakly-rotating funnels that appeared ominous, but each dissipated quickly before getting close to producing.



I called the chase at Sullivan and headed home, driving under an impressive "whales' mouth" over the outflow.

Videos from the day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCfottxJdbA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDr4yiL-sKA

 

[Terry Tyler]

Was on the Tupelo, MS supercell. Had been watching the storm since it was in Grenada, MS and was undecided between several of the cells which were lined up on that day. My initial choice was to go towards a storm in Chickasaw County, MS but after a view of the radar I headed to Tupelo. The storm seemed to have very similar radar and visual appearance; in addition to storm track to the May, 8 2008 storm.

Here is a picture of the wall cloud with a very long tail cloud going into it. Also; you see a couple of cops watching the storm.

Tornado hitting what I believe to be some high-tension powerlines after passing through the Vista Ridge apartments.

A heavy duty hose with a industrial pump off the back of a utilities truck crashed in the median had been wrapped around this cable so tight; it pinched these high-tensile cables. I felt of the hose myself. I am still unsure how it tied it around this thing.

Here is the video : Quality is a bit poor; as I was using a webcam to film it. It basically covers the storm structure as it goes from a large stovepipe appearance to a full blown wedge with Tuscaloosa, AL style vorticies ahead of the tornado and a horizontal inflow vortex.

Watch video >

It was pretty intense.

 

[Skip Talbot]

Detailed log, statistics, map, photos, and video from our chase through Tupelo, MS:
http://skip.cc/chase/140428/