2015-06-28 REPORTS: MO/IL

[Dan Robinson]

A 2015-reedeming day for me. Started out in Hannibal today. I was on the supercell at its first RFD cycle directly overhead west of town. After a couple more valiant attempts, the storm moved off over the river and out of reach. Due to road flooding concerns along the rivers, I chose to cross into IL and head down to Louisiana via Rockport to re-intercept on the IL side, where I had seen via the IDot site earlier in the morning that that segment was still open. The storm put on a great structure show as it approached and crossed the Mississippi, but the RFD was just overpowering all attempts to organize.



After this point, the storm was clearly too far east of the boundary and not ingesting any of the high-CAPE air to the west, so I crossed back over into Missouri and headed south on 61 to catch up to a new storm that was quickly going nuts. I made it through the northern part of the hook just in time to watch the circulation wrap up and produce just west of the highway at Eolia, then cross.



The tornado appeared to be moving east, but soon became apparent it was turning more south. It crossed the road *again* at some point and was now back on the west side of the highway when I stopped again at the Eolia exit to observe! A snaky subvortex briefly condensed within the broader zone of rotating rain curtains. EDIT: Damage surveys confirm that this was a second, separate tornado, not one erraticly-moving tornado as I'd first believed.



Once again, it appeared as if the tornado turned easterly again, and I had to dart back north on Highway 61 to get out of the way. After losing the entire circulation in heavy rain, I saw that the storm was becoming more linear. So, I dropped south to Wentzville to see if it could re-organize, as its western flank was still very well isolated from other storms to the south. And sure enough, the storm began to 'go nuts' again just north of I-70. This was the structure view at Lake St. Louis:



The meso began drawing in surface inflow at a rapid pace just east of here, and I observed what appeared to be a truncated cone tornado deeply embedded in the rain just north of the I-70/370 interchange. I have yet to pull this off off my camera tonight and contrast-enhance it to see if it's apparent. I observed small tree branches and leaves falling from the sky just to the east of here. The storm developed a new circulation to the south, so I dropped down to I-64, then I-55 and finally I-255 to Columbia, IL to keep up with the storm. I did not have visual for a time I was inside the forward flank core, but I did not see any evidence of a tornado during this time (power flashes, etc). Although the storm was now outflow-undercut, it was putting on a top-tier lightning show, so I stopped a couple more times to capture a few frames before heading home.



Video:

 

[Ethan Schisler]

I as well chased the Eastern Missouri/Western IL area yesterday. Got on some first storms near Quincy and they looked good initially but failed to produce anything noteworthy, dropped south to near Hannibal and had some good structure, but again falling short of anything tornadic. Then we headed west towards the Eolia, Missouri supercell where we documented a tornado which crossed highway 61 almost taking out a couple of semis. My chase partner Kholby Martin and I got some great video of it crossing the highway, thankfully the semi drivers were okay and it didn't flip them over. Quite a dramatic end to what I thought was a busted chase.... Here is a link to the video:

Also shot a couple stills of the storm/tornado and a fairly poor quality video grab of one of them suction vortices from close range.




Just outside Eolia, Missouri, about the first time I noticed debris falling from the sky here, fairly certain there was a tornado ongoing already under there


Debris cloud tearing through a open area just north of the highway.

 

[Winston Wells]

I also chased the narrow corridor of eastern Missouri that produced a very nice string of tornado-warned supercells. My chase was almost identical to the first half of Dan's experience above, but I called it a day right after the Eolia, MO tornado, which I was a bit too late to see.

I drove west past my initial target of Hull, IL once the tops showed up on radar on the day's first storm that fired west of Hannibal, MO near Shelbina, MO. The storm matured and moved east in perfect position just to the north of U.S. 36, and I got right under the developing base near Monroe City, MO. Here's the storm in its early stage. The view is to the north from U.S. 36:



A few miles further east the storm really began to get its act together, and it was soon tornado-warned by NWS-LSX. I forgot about the pattern's northwestern flow, so I was initially thrown off by the placement of the updraft, which appeared at the back, or western, edge of the cell. But I repositioned back a bit to the west on U.S. 36 and had a great view as a very clear RFD cut in and began to help wrap things up:



As the storm approached Hannibal, it appeared to develop two distinct circulations. I really thought the lowering on the left in next photo was going to get it done, but it soon weakened. The area on the right then took over, developed a nice wall cloud, and thankfully moved just south of town. The next three photos show this transition:







As Dan mentioned, this was challenging terrain, and I found it very hard to keep the storm's base in sight as it moved out over the Mississippi River and began to drift to the southeast. I too opted to move back into Illinois. I took IL-106 and IL-96 through Hull, Kinderhook, and New Canton, IL, but the storm's precip core stubbornly refused to get out of the way. By the time I finally had a good view again of the updraft - near Rockport, IL - the storm had become noticeably less well-organized. It was also now moving southeast into an isolated part of Illinois between the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers with a poor road network and few crossings.

So, I then moved back southwest into Missouri with an eye on the Eolia storm, which was now tornado-warned. I crossed the Mississippi River at Louisiana and dove south quickly on U.S. 61 at Bowling Green, MO. I saw the truck that was blown into the median and some nearby fence and tree damage, but I missed the actual tornado itself. Here's a shot of the storm's backside from U.S. 61 just south of Eolia as it moved off to the east.



Here's a bit of video from my initial intercept west of Hannibal, MO:

I had no stomach for chasing the storm into the St. Louis metro area, so I called it day and and started the easy drive back home to Jacksonville, IL. For something of a sleeper day, this turned out to be a very enjoyable and at times exciting chase.

 

[Dan Robinson]

I have finished a chase account page for this event, which includes more photos and an extended version of the video.

http://stormhighway.com/blog2015/june2915a.php

 

[Paul Hadfield]

Stepped out with zero expectations on an advancing line as the most favorable conditions were forecast much further W/SW than I could commit to. Ended up with a forum worthy score unlike anything I've ever experienced from SE of Springfield Illinois.