2016-03-13 REPORTS: AR

[David Williams]

Overall, a fun first chase of the season for me! I targeted De Queen, AR. Shortly after I arrived a cell fired to the south of De Queen and quickly became severe then tornado warned.







It didn't look all that great, and my cell pic doesn't add much. But it slowly got its act together as I chased it through the hills and trees.







No tornadoes formed by the time I was forced to abandon it south of the National Forest.

By the time I caught back up at Mayflower, it was apparently producing the Conway/Vilonia tornado.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Stormtrack mobile app

 

[Quincy Vagell]

This was a highly anticipated chase that was a bit of a roller coaster until about one hour before sunset.

I dropped down to Pine Bluff and basically sat there for a few hours, resisting the urge to blast west into very poor terrain, even though there were ongoing, impressive supercells. I was also concerned with convection being able to initiate to the south, so I felt that my location near I-530 would allow me to maintain both the northern and southern play into the early evening.

Clusters of storms finally developed right overhead, but none really looked particularly impressive. This was around the time that a robust supercell was rolling through Little Rock, so I decided to start moving northeast, to keep anything in east-central or northeast Arkansas in play, including the aforementioned cell. Another mini-supercell fired near White Hall and crossed the Arkansas River, so I figured that might be one to pursue. I had a visual on a wall cloud, but it didn't look very organized. To the south, another cell was quickly organizing and showing signs of tight rotation, so I headed south toward the river.

While just north of Grady, I suddenly had a visual on a small tornado in progress and it lifted after only a few minutes. I was able to snap a few photos before it lifted. I pulled over and saw a ragged wall cloud to my immediate north. This was the same storm that had produced the tornado minutes earlier.

I parallelled clusters of storms northeast for the next couple of hours, eventually intercepting a tornado-warned cell in Marvell. I had a brief visual on a tornado here as well and saw spotty damage and downed power lines. One power line was down in someone's yard, where it had started a fire. Crews were on scene, so I continued on.

The chase came to an end a short time later when it was just too dark and I had no compelling reason to pursue marginally interesting storms. I had driven over 800 miles that day, so it was time to get a friends house and crash. All in all, not a bad chase and getting fairly close to the tornado near Grady made this a rewarding trip.

 

[Ben Holcomb]

Nice hail and a crappy tornado in the western Arkansas mountains and jungles. I've posted my recap at http://www.oklahomachaser.com/chases/20160313

 

[Jeremy Perez]

I had my eye on potential for this setup in the days leading up to an annual visit to western Oklahoma. I headed out about 7AM with an initial check-in target at Hope, Arkansas.

I wasn’t sure I’d ever take the plunge into chasing Arkansas, but after working on my chase map last year I had a better idea where potentially decent chase terrain/road network would be. I also spent the night before studying how highway/secondary roads would play out with northeast moving storms. Even the heavily treed areas (outside the mountains) still have patches of farmland where some peeks can be taken. I had resolved to stay far ahead of storms as long as I was in the heavy trees. Turns out I didn't need to mess around with them in the thicker areas. I figured I had time to shoot some landscape photos on the way—southwest Arkansas is beautiful with lots of interesting photo ops.

Fenceline along Hwy 278 in Washington, AR


Once I got to Hope about 2:30PM, I knew I had to keep moving. Convection was initiating and I was going to be in the middle of it instead of out ahead.

I made my way through Camden, Fordyce, and then to Star City where I was far enough ahead of the developing line of storms to figure out the best option. I wanted tail-end-charlie in the southernmost batch of convection—closest to better moisture before the cap pinched the line off. At 2230Z, the southernmost convection was about 30 miles to my west near Fordyce. There would be clearer views in farmland just to my east, so I headed that way and looked for a good intercept spot along AR-11 about 3 miles south of Grady.

Fields and farm roads were flooded everywhere, so I knew any use of the road grid was out of the question. Paved roads were dense enough to get within 5 miles of anything in the area, with the main issue being river crossings for the Arkansas River spaced about 35-40 miles apart at Little Rock, Pine Bluff and Pendleton. The end cell did me a lot of favors and strengthened nicely as it approached. The flooded fields made for some interesting photography options that I wasn’t planning for.

As the rain free base moved closer, I could finally see that RFD was carving out a glowing hole punctuated by a wall cloud with nice tendrils and rising motion.

Lightning strike poses with my time lapse and video setup - 2315Z


Closer view of rotating wall cloud - 2322Z


It was far enough off that I had plenty of time to set up for time lapse and lightning shots as it moved in. As the cell got more to my north, RFD finally punched a huge skylight in the base. A line of trees was blocking my view somewhat, so I raced about a half mile up the road and did another quick setup to watch events unfold.

Looking up AR-11 as RFD cuts open the rain free base - 2330Z


I got video and still cameras tripoded up for shots just seconds before a noodle slipped out of the wall cloud and made contact (2335Z). The fact that I just broke a three year tornado drought with an Arkansas tornado was freaking me out. The seemingly imminent grief of chasing Arkansas with trees, vegetation and flooding actually made for the best tornado photos I’ve gotten so far.

Funnel reaching for the ground, full contact, debris - 2334-2338Z


Arkansas tornado over flooded fields - 2338Z


While I was snapping away, a couple drove up in a car, motioning for me to come over. Trusting that the video camera was doing its job, I headed over to find them in Heightened-Awareness-Mode (understandably), fumbling with a cell phone trying to show me a picture of a tornado that just touched down, and how careful I needed to be. It took a few tries before they understood that, yes, I was actually trying to take pictures of it right now. Meanwhile my unattended SLR & tripod had blown over and face planted into the soil while I wasn’t watching. So as they took off, I ran back, lamented my fallen camera, unscrewed the thank-goodness-for-that UV filter and kept shooting.

Still can’t believe I’m watching a tornado over this waterscape - 2340Z


The tornado roped out about 9 minute after it touched down and I took off for the Pendleton river crossing.

Starting to rope out - 2341Z


Last bits of the rope out - 2343Z


I couldn’t catch back up or get in good position to catch some newer convection to the south, so I tried for parting lightning shots that didn’t turn out any good. After that, I crossed the Mississippi at Helena and boondocked along US 61 before heading north for the March 15th setup.

As I downloaded my photo and video media, something didn't seem right about my video footage—there wasn't enough of it. As I dug into it, I came to the terrible realization that I had the video camera in pause mode during the entire 9 minute tornado sequence. The anguish is making my guts clench as I type this. I had that video framed and focused perfectly the entire time. But I guess I was juggling too much photography and planning the next move to get everything right. I keep working on the fact that I got a lot of good still shots and just a tidbit of the first touchdown on the far edge of my dashcam video.

Chase Map - 13 March 2016


Chase Report with additional images: Storm Chase - Grady, AR || 13 March 2016