Ethan Schisler
EF5
I'll get the ball rolling on this report thread. Originally I had hopes of chasing Eastern Kansas on this day, however mesoscale models early on during the morning hours of Friday were showing a complex situation, so I held off. I left town around 10am with a general target somewhere in Central/Eastern Missouri. I figured if any storms could go up and interact with the warm front, it would be game on. I got on the first storm outside of Jefferson City, Missouri and didn't really note much on it despite it having a tornado warning. I decided to grab some lunch at Subway and then head down toward I-44 so i got get better data. It was at this time that I noticed a tornado warning (QLCS) to my southwest moving directly toward me, so I decided this would probably be my only play for the day given the storm motion (NE at 60 MPH) and awful terrain near the Rolla, Missouri area. I intercepted the storm from the northeast noting a gust-front on the forward flank of the storm as I was dropping south, fairly impressive looking:
Edgar Springs, Missouri Tornado Warned Storm
I wish I had time to get out and shoot on my tripod here as this was a quality shelf cloud. Anyway I dropped further south and east as the storm motion was SE at this moment. I got straight into the inflow notch on the outside of Edgar Springs where rotation was being shown on radar. I managed to notice a wall cloud had developed with some very strong and focused rotation. I saw some dust and a *possible* vortex get kicked up underneath this feature for about 5 seconds before I had to bail east because of the extreme forward motion. I got one last look at it as it was crossing the highway and thought I saw another brief spin-up, but I could never confirm this. It could have been a brief QLCS tornado, it could have simply been nothing. Who knows....but it would have been in the right place.
a few seconds later it moves from right to left.....
I immediately got overtaken by 60-70 mph winds in the rear inflow jet of what was a developing bow echo at the time. I decided to call the chase and we got treated to a beautiful sunset as we entered back into Illinois and arrived home around 10PM after driving roughly 700 miles in under 12 hours.
Not my ideal chase, but not bad either for a spur of the moment adventure. I just wish the tornadoes this year would last longer and be more photogenic....tired of brief spin-ups.

Edgar Springs, Missouri Tornado Warned Storm
I wish I had time to get out and shoot on my tripod here as this was a quality shelf cloud. Anyway I dropped further south and east as the storm motion was SE at this moment. I got straight into the inflow notch on the outside of Edgar Springs where rotation was being shown on radar. I managed to notice a wall cloud had developed with some very strong and focused rotation. I saw some dust and a *possible* vortex get kicked up underneath this feature for about 5 seconds before I had to bail east because of the extreme forward motion. I got one last look at it as it was crossing the highway and thought I saw another brief spin-up, but I could never confirm this. It could have been a brief QLCS tornado, it could have simply been nothing. Who knows....but it would have been in the right place.

a few seconds later it moves from right to left.....

I immediately got overtaken by 60-70 mph winds in the rear inflow jet of what was a developing bow echo at the time. I decided to call the chase and we got treated to a beautiful sunset as we entered back into Illinois and arrived home around 10PM after driving roughly 700 miles in under 12 hours.

Not my ideal chase, but not bad either for a spur of the moment adventure. I just wish the tornadoes this year would last longer and be more photogenic....tired of brief spin-ups.