Quincy Vagell
EF4
Going against better logistical logic, I started the day in Tupelo, MS and decided to wait for the "main action" to begin in northeastern Mississippi. Once it did, it was fairly unimpressive at first, so knowing the road network and terrain was quite challenging, I moved east toward the AL state line, near Red Bay. A cluster of supercells began to evolve, but visibility was fairly low due to hills and the close proximity of storms.
I found a clearing just east of Red Bay and pulled off to watch the supercell that apparently produced an intermittent EF-0 in the area. After watching and re-watching video footage several times, I cannot find anything remotely conclusive to a tornado, so I assume any tornado was rain-wrapped or otherwise not visible, unless you were almost directly underneath it. Regardless, the cell did have some noteworthy structure from a distance, but I didn't stay long, knowing that the one direct route to Russellville was about to be trampled over by multiple tornado-warned, embedded supercells. The photo below was taken at 4:55 p.m. and lines up exactly with the time that the NWS confirmed an EF-0 tornado:
![red_bay_01.jpg red_bay_01.jpg](https://stormtrack.org/data/attachments/33/33510-150336de73ee45fad45b4d3c2816c6f0.jpg)
Several photos and reports circulated that a "tornado" was ongoing well before the storm reached Russellville, but it was apparent that terrain was blocking any clear views of the storm. LCLs were quite low (in the 400-500m ranged, based on mesoanalysis) and from a few glimpses that I had of the storm, it was simply sporting a low, rotating wall cloud. The below screengrab was from 5:15 p.m. about midway between Red Bay and Russellville and shows the wall cloud was clearly well above the ground, considering the elevation and terrain of the area:
![red_bay_roof.jpg red_bay_roof.jpg](https://stormtrack.org/data/attachments/33/33511-dd06c95b1d838f9e51a0e30b576a213a.jpg)
The storm chase was getting quite challenging considering that there was close to no visibility on the storm and I had to make a quick decision of either core punching/bear caging it up into Russellville, or diving south in hopes of maybe catching up to the storms later on. The terrain and road networks do improve from Russellville and points east/northeast, but the trajectory of the storms was pushing them from the southern edge of reasonably chaseable areas, into more "typical" Alabama terrain to the southeast.
I reached I-65 in the Cullman area shortly before sunset and a semi-discrete, small supercell rapidly developed just to my west. I went down to Good Hope and the storm was tornado warned. The visual on the storm wasn't anything overly impressive, as it appeared that most of the rotation of elevated, but radar data, including a pronounced hail spike, suggested the little cell was producing some significant hail.
In Good Hope, once the core had safely passed, I started seeing larger and larger hailstones on the road, in the range of golf ball to tennis ball-sized. I pulled off and snapped off a few photos. The larger stones were about baseball-sized, approximately 2.75 inches in diameter. Based on reports, some hail just to the north of where I was (around Cullman) was 3 to 4 inches in diameter and caused significant damage.
![good_hope_hail_01.jpg good_hope_hail_01.jpg](https://stormtrack.org/data/attachments/33/33512-201c2547b3fd9e95f5523be57dc6ef2f.jpg)
![good_hope_hail_02.jpg good_hope_hail_02.jpg](https://stormtrack.org/data/attachments/33/33513-a83dab778fdf5aa4a1d650ef8da68bc5.jpg)
This was my first legitimate chase of the season and featured some modestly interesting structure early on and the icing on the cake was the very large hail at the end. The event essentially performed as modeled, although I will note that the position and axis of the warm front may have been modulated by midday convection in northern Alabama. All of the model data suggested W-E or even WSW-ENE moving UH tracks across northern Alabama, northwestern Georgia and Middle Tennessee. The warm front was oriented in more of a NW-SE axis and storm clusters moved along the warm front, arcing ESE/SE into western Georgia. Maybe the southern end of the Appalachians also worked to wedge the front to the south a bit as well. Instability was largely displaced south of Tennessee, such that most of the state remained severe storm-free, with just the one isolated tornadic supercell near the AL/TN border.
All in all, SPC did a great job based on verification, as there were well over a dozen reports of tornadoes and multiple strong tornadoes, including the first EF-3 since last May.
I found a clearing just east of Red Bay and pulled off to watch the supercell that apparently produced an intermittent EF-0 in the area. After watching and re-watching video footage several times, I cannot find anything remotely conclusive to a tornado, so I assume any tornado was rain-wrapped or otherwise not visible, unless you were almost directly underneath it. Regardless, the cell did have some noteworthy structure from a distance, but I didn't stay long, knowing that the one direct route to Russellville was about to be trampled over by multiple tornado-warned, embedded supercells. The photo below was taken at 4:55 p.m. and lines up exactly with the time that the NWS confirmed an EF-0 tornado:
![red_bay_01.jpg red_bay_01.jpg](https://stormtrack.org/data/attachments/33/33510-150336de73ee45fad45b4d3c2816c6f0.jpg)
Several photos and reports circulated that a "tornado" was ongoing well before the storm reached Russellville, but it was apparent that terrain was blocking any clear views of the storm. LCLs were quite low (in the 400-500m ranged, based on mesoanalysis) and from a few glimpses that I had of the storm, it was simply sporting a low, rotating wall cloud. The below screengrab was from 5:15 p.m. about midway between Red Bay and Russellville and shows the wall cloud was clearly well above the ground, considering the elevation and terrain of the area:
![red_bay_roof.jpg red_bay_roof.jpg](https://stormtrack.org/data/attachments/33/33511-dd06c95b1d838f9e51a0e30b576a213a.jpg)
The storm chase was getting quite challenging considering that there was close to no visibility on the storm and I had to make a quick decision of either core punching/bear caging it up into Russellville, or diving south in hopes of maybe catching up to the storms later on. The terrain and road networks do improve from Russellville and points east/northeast, but the trajectory of the storms was pushing them from the southern edge of reasonably chaseable areas, into more "typical" Alabama terrain to the southeast.
I reached I-65 in the Cullman area shortly before sunset and a semi-discrete, small supercell rapidly developed just to my west. I went down to Good Hope and the storm was tornado warned. The visual on the storm wasn't anything overly impressive, as it appeared that most of the rotation of elevated, but radar data, including a pronounced hail spike, suggested the little cell was producing some significant hail.
In Good Hope, once the core had safely passed, I started seeing larger and larger hailstones on the road, in the range of golf ball to tennis ball-sized. I pulled off and snapped off a few photos. The larger stones were about baseball-sized, approximately 2.75 inches in diameter. Based on reports, some hail just to the north of where I was (around Cullman) was 3 to 4 inches in diameter and caused significant damage.
![good_hope_hail_01.jpg good_hope_hail_01.jpg](https://stormtrack.org/data/attachments/33/33512-201c2547b3fd9e95f5523be57dc6ef2f.jpg)
![good_hope_hail_02.jpg good_hope_hail_02.jpg](https://stormtrack.org/data/attachments/33/33513-a83dab778fdf5aa4a1d650ef8da68bc5.jpg)
This was my first legitimate chase of the season and featured some modestly interesting structure early on and the icing on the cake was the very large hail at the end. The event essentially performed as modeled, although I will note that the position and axis of the warm front may have been modulated by midday convection in northern Alabama. All of the model data suggested W-E or even WSW-ENE moving UH tracks across northern Alabama, northwestern Georgia and Middle Tennessee. The warm front was oriented in more of a NW-SE axis and storm clusters moved along the warm front, arcing ESE/SE into western Georgia. Maybe the southern end of the Appalachians also worked to wedge the front to the south a bit as well. Instability was largely displaced south of Tennessee, such that most of the state remained severe storm-free, with just the one isolated tornadic supercell near the AL/TN border.
All in all, SPC did a great job based on verification, as there were well over a dozen reports of tornadoes and multiple strong tornadoes, including the first EF-3 since last May.
Last edited: