2018-07-19 Reports: IA/MO

[Harrison Cater]

(Super long post) Well. Uh... I scored. I started the day near Newton IA, what was interesting was as soon as the first storm went off, it immediately went tornado warned(within minutes of 50dbz). I found this surprising and as it turned out, would set the tone for the day. My first tornado came near Colfax probably 30 minutes after the initial warning and was the 2nd(3rd) tornado that storm produced. I caught it from a distance with some good contrast.



As this tornado roped out, the storm wasted no time cycling and soon dropping another tornado immediately south of Prairie City. This was my favorite due to the lack of damage caused and good viewing angle.



And a video of the same tornado



Again the storm wasted no time and was wrapping up before this tornado was done. I didn't get any good pictures of the 3rd tornado as I was driving at the time. Short live stovepipe near Monroe.




The next two tornadoes featured a little more staying power than the last two. Both being strong looking cones near Pella, IA. One to the NW and another in Pella and to the SE. I got a pretty nice angle on the RFD, with the rain wrapped cone for tornado number 4. The RFD on this storm was particularly dramatic at times and something more characteristic of the High Plains than of Iowa. Normally this area is super HP and filled with rain. While under that cut, I could see deep into the storm's updraft(probably a few miles up at least).





After passing through Pella, I came out on the other side and was immediately greeted by a very welcoming tornado number 5. This was the tornado that destroyed the manufacturing plant in Pella. I was perfectly positioned smack dab in the middle of the RFD for the entire duration of tornadoes 5 and 6. There wasn't much hail(topping out at nickle size), and the rain really wasn't too bad for Iowa standards either, but the wind was exceptional at times measuring at least 80-90mph. Tornado number 6 was a brief satellite this tornado, of which I didn't get any pictures. This would be the end of my chase as my car had decided it was fed up with the RFD and the red battery light came on. As such, I called the chase there and headed back early, with no further issue. However it doesn't appear I missed any more tornadoes.






All in all, absolutely stellar chase with all different types of structure and tornadoes and easily the best chase I've had.(Although my chase portfolio is still quite small.)

 

[Nikola Pavlovic]

---After i deleted my Flickr account, all photos i posted are not visible anymore, i do apologize for that.---

Started my day in Chicago 7am, with initial target being somewhere in Marshalltown - Tama - Newton area.
I followed southern supercell from NW of Prairie City to Ottumwa. Witnessed couple of tornadoes. I usually try not to get very close to tornado but this time i made exception. My goal was to hear tornado for the first time.

The first tornado i saw was the one near Altoona IA, but i was too far away to take photos.

The second tornado was slim one NW of Prairie City. It caught me by surprise since it descended from something which looked like cumulus completely separated from meso:

Tornado just S of Prairie City:

Tornado E of Monroe:

Pella tornado.

If you look carefully this photo you will see a lot of flying debris behind the building:

E of Pella, when i decided i want to hear tornado. Never again.

Way too close for my taste.

I followed this storm to Ottumwa. It became very hard to spot anything in heavy rain and i decided it's time to let it go.

 

[Billy Faletti]

Yesterday was just insanity. Had a feeling SPC was underplaying it, but didn't think anything close to the event that unfolded would happen. This I think takes the spot as my #1 chase, overtaking Carpenter 6/12/17. Iowa finally gave it up...

Highlights video:

 

[Devin Pitts]

This day had been on my radar since Sunday night once the GFS and Euro started agreeing on the 500mb jet placement over Iowa, and I preemptively put in my PTO request Monday morning as my pattern recognition was ringing alarm bells.

I set out for Central Iowa first thing in the morning, eventually parking just north of Newton to await storm initiation. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't hyped for the day after seeing what the models were outputting and what surface obs were showing on my way to my target area. I was confident the SPC was underselling the day quite a bit, but I didn't think it was going to overperform THIS much.

The cell that would eventually drop the Pella tornadoes initiated directly to my West and I began making my way towards it. Unfortunately I missed the first two tornadoes as the base was obscured from my vantage point by the FFD as I was coming in from the East. I got into position just ahead of the updraft base as it was crossing I-80, and noticed to my direct south that a new cell was developing and already had strong low level rotation in the base. I was incredibly confused because there was no radar return for this particular updraft but decided to catch up to it anyways and sure enough as I approached the base near Prairie City it dropped a nice rope tornado:

As far as I can tell this tornado only hit trees and spooked a few horses. After this I continued onward towards Monroe where I caught this tornado which I hadn't realized was just a satellite tornado to a much larger tornado wrapped in rain behind it:

After this Dissipated I followed the storm to Pella, where the storm would produce its strongest tornadoes and impact the north side of town. I caught a brief glimpse of the early stages of the tornado buried in the rain filled RFD:

I also got an amazing view up into the storm through the RFD clear slot, even seeing blue sky up in there:

Next I made a mistake and tried to drive through town to catch up quicker, which resulted in me losing ground somewhat, but I got a view of the tornado exiting town:

It's included in that video, but I cut and uploaded the last portion separately as it was one of my more close range intercepts and was quite intense with the RFD hammering me as the tornado occluded:

After this tornado I observed a small rope tornado but did not get any video or pictures of it as it was very short lived.

I eventually followed the storm all the way down to Ottumwa, where I believe I saw the left edge of a large tornado buried in the rain filled RFD(that was also reported by law enforcement) but I did not get any video or images of it. After that I decided to let the storms run me over and called it a chase. On the way home I was greeted by a fantastic sunset:

All in all, one of my best chases to date.

 

[Mike Marz]

I arrived near Des Moines just as the first cell went up. Never did I expect things to get started that fast yesterday. The updraft tower looked absolutely explosive from the north and then I saw the funnel reports and I went south as fast as I could to get into position to see the first tornado, which was quite stout. Through the hills and corn I gained a view of the first tornado from very far away. I like to be much closer to the action so I went off roading the rest of the chase in attempts to get close, which ended up costing me. Long story short, I saw 5 tornadoes on this day but I was never in the position that I wanted to be in and I was always behind the storm, battling the backroads. I ended up running into an unexpected clay road while attempting a hook slice to get into the notch, and this clay ended my chase. I ended up being stuck for about an hour. I eventually used the same method I use in the winter to get out of deep snow to get out of this mud/clay material. Rock back and forth and gun it, until you gain traction again. My engine did not like that, but I eventually escaped that clay. Overall, very disappointed in my execution of this chase day, as I feel I could have gotten much better footage than I did, but I am happy to have seen multiple tornadoes. Iowa is doing well for me this season, there’s no doubt!

 

[Mike DeLange]

Making my way across Iowa from Omaha late morning, (following an emergency dental appointment for my youngest) I was encouraged by the environment: wind profiles looked good, MCS from early morning cleared, but optimism kicked into high gear when seeing the rapid rebound of temps and dews in the target area, hauling low level winds and an agitated front. I first positioned North of Bondurant, IA when a seemingly meager cell rapidly developed and started to spin. Moments later, a funnel was spit out, turning quickly into a tornado with a concentrated and powerful circulation field. Unfortunately, I witnessed property damage but no injuries at either of the two locations.

Here is a 5m compilation of this event:

After checking on several residences and speaking with the local authorities, I was behind the chase a little but I was able later to catch up to the Pella event after it had moved through town. I am very thankful there were no fatalities from this event.

 

[Dan Robinson]

(above post replaced with a more proper report below) Missed it all - stupid early initiation. Thursday's setup (the 19th) originally featured a respectable supercell/tornado threat in the St. Louis metro with flow aloft from a very unusual July upper-level trough, a warm front and strong instability from Iowa down through southern Missouri. The sweet spot looked to be near the surface low in Iowa where a wedge of strong instability would make its way up closer to the low. This would have been an obvious reason to leave early in the day to head up to Iowa, but with the threat existing the St. Louis metro, I did not initially plan for it (I always choose a local target if it exists than one hours away). As the day arrived on Thursday, it was apparent the St. Louis regional play was completely hosed. A decaying MCS (storm complex) was moving east toward the metro, spreading thick clouds that would prevent destabilization in the afternoon. With the local chase target decimated, I began heading up to Iowa after noon. Models had indicated that convection would hold off until around 5pm up there, so even though I'd likely be 30-45 minutes late, I felt I'd have enough time for a storm to mature before tornadoes began.

Instead, at 2pm, a storm developed right in the target at Des Moines, and tornado reports began flooding in almost immediately. I wasn't even at Hannibal yet, still more than three hours away. In retrospect I should have just turned around and went home, but I felt that the storm might track along the front well into the evening hours, giving me a chance to see something. I arrived on the storm west of Fairfield, Iowa at around 6PM, and visually it was obvious that the storm was finished with tornadoes. Outflow dominant with nothing feeding into the storm from the surface, this once-prolific tornado machine was never going to recover as it bowed out into a straight-line wind producer:

I abandoned the storm and dropped south to a new isolated cell going up at Memphis, Missouri. The Memphis storm had a great look initially - a large, strong updraft base with RFD punching in, and a lowering along the RFD with wild motion that suggested it was about 10 to 15 minutes away from a tornado.

The RFD carved out this occlusion that looked like one you'd see with tornado in progress, but motion underneath was weak:

Soon after this, the outflow from the original storm to the north began undercutting the new updraft, turning the entire thing into one solid gust front ahead of both storms.

The movement of the storms initially looked like they might head toward St. Louis, so I turned my attention to getting back home ahead of them.

The now-linear complex eventually turned more easterly, barely grazing Troy, Illinois northeast of St. Louis. I set up a brief timelapse here as the gust front arrived with northerly winds, then surface winds turned 180 degrees back north - something I'd never witnessed before.

 

[Spencer Dant]

Am I late? Yeah, looks like I'm late.

I don't know how I have never posted here before, but I had never seen eight tornadoes in a day before (or seven, or six..) this past Thursday so it seems like as good a time as any to quit lurking. Devin, Harrison, Mike and I had all been discussing this setup for close to a week on the ST Discord and other than one NAM run that tried to kill all our hopes and dreams and push the whole event to central Missouri, we all felt that the models, specifically the GFS and the Euro, pointed to this being a good tornado day. Now I don't know about them, but to me a good tornado day and an outbreak are not the same thing, and while I expected some spinning air along the front with some to-be-determined boundary interaction I certainly did not expect what happened.

My initial target was somewhere between Gilman and Newton, and ironically enough I ended up watching the main supercell struggle to grow in Baxter, just a short drive from Marshalltown. I knew initiation could be early, so I was out the door at 4 AM on a six hour drive. Just as it finally began to take shape, it just had to split. It was obvious to me to go for the southern split given the expected storm motion and the helicity bullseye that was beginning to set up to the southeast, so I cheated that direction. The first tornado warning went up before I had even made it south let alone west to the base, but I managed to get a view of the main Bondurant tornado from about 5 miles away. Getting closer would have put me out of position later, so I zoomed in and accepted the lack of contrast.



As that tornado dissipated, I began to creep southeast to stay ahead of the storm. I got stuck behind some really, really annoying semi trucks that for whatever reason were taking back roads at about 22 MPH instead of I-80. I was too busy being pissed off to notice that the storm had already cycled back again and tornado/(landspout?) #2 had come down in the fields to my right, maybe a mile away.



Before this one had even roped out, the next wall cloud had come into form in front of me. This is when I started thinking that today might end up a really, really good day for me. I spent a few minutes talking with the cops that had pulled up beside me, explaining what I was seeing and what they need to be looking out for, and by the time our conversation ended, tornado #2 had dissipated. I drove to keep up with the new circulation for a few miles as it funneled in front of me, showing off its inner helix and eventually condensing.



An annoying hill and a trip through town kept me from seeing the debris, but this tornado was on the ground for at least a couple of minutes and had a couple of brief horizontal vortices that seemed out of place for what I figured was a relatively weak tornado. It hasn't been surveyed yet, but despite that I can't see it being rated very strongly.

Prairie City tornado #2 was probably down as I watched the first one rope out. I caught the latter end of its lifespan as it fought inevitable death, dissipating and then reemerging a couple of times. Harrison got the same shot I did of it (we were next to each other on the side of the road) so I'm not going to use up an upload on it.

I had to drive a whole 10 minutes before I saw another tornado, which at this point seemed like a really long time. I could see that I had fallen behind this storm while watching the Prairie City tornado rope out, so I fought through a traffic jam (3-way stop signs are hard, I guess) and made my way toward Pella. It was quite obvious where this tornado should be, but if it was there it was behind the rain. I had to get south of it to see it. When I did, I was happy that I had been so urgent to catch back up, because this gorgeous tornado was my favorite tornado of the day.



I wasn't aware that this tornado was only a precursor to the next, so I was taking it in. It was absolutely beautiful and for me it cemented this chase as one of my best ever. I was a little bit sad that it seemed to lose strength within about 30 seconds of actually being visible, but my sadness turned into curiosity when I saw this tornado roping out and being pulled around the rain as it began to weaken. A quick bolt of lightning illuminated what I had already began to suspect and gifted me with one of my favorite video grabs of all time, where not only can you see the former cone tornado roping out and showing off its insides on the right as a satellite but also the large tornado that had in all likelihood been brewing behind the rain this entire time.



As I wandered slightly north to try to get closer to the now rainy meso, I would occasionally catch glimpses of what appeared to be a wall cloud or a funnel cloud close to the ground. Generally, when I am close to a town and this is happening I am on the lookout using both my own visuals and radar to see if anything was hit, but I did not know that Pella was a populated area. I had figured it for a one-stoplight town that I could buzz through, just as all the others I had encountered were so far since I crossed I-80. I figured it would be out of the way, because I figured it was south of me. As it turns out, Pella is a fairly big town with a population around 10,000. I had no idea that I was passing Vermeer and actually on my way into town as I traversed a dirt road in the rain, and I had no idea that Vermeer had already been hit when I drove by. Once I was in town, I realized that if this tornado struck town it might be a more dire scenario than I had anticipated. Fortunately, it barely - barely - missed the main part of town, but I didn't know if it had when I went through. This is what I saw as some debris, likely from the factory, fell down on me.



I could only feel certain that the tornado had avoided the main area of town once I actually got through town, at which point I was a lot less nervous and a lot more excited to see a very obviously strong tornado right in front of me. A greedy voice in my head is upset at this point that I took the angle at this tornado that I did - specifically going through town instead of going around and getting back to the highway, where I could have been faster to get back to a good view - but when I got to watch it cross fields in front of me, I felt much better about it. It was quite a sight, and much better on video, which is uploaded at the end of this post.



Ultimately, this storm chugged on with major rain-wrapped wedge potential for another couple of hours but as far as I know, it seemed as if the Pella tornado sapped up all of its energy. It had the breath for one last hoorah before it became a very HP storm, though, as it put down another long rope or stovepipe tornado northwest of Leighton. The circulation that once belonged to the Pella tornado tightened up over my head as I was punching the core to try and keep up, so I stopped and let the RFD blast hit me. It was a lot more intense than I expected it to be, so I decided it was better to be on my guard and follow the tornado from behind as opposed to going for a close range intercept in the rain. I ended up about 1/2 mile from my 8th and final tornado of the day. It crossed the road harmlessly in front of me.



Ultimately, I could have positioned myself better to get some amazing views of multiple extremely photogenic tornadoes, but I can't complain about seeing more tornadoes in a day than I ever had before. It is possible that I was in the close vicinity of more tornadoes including what a couple of people thought might have been a wedge near Ottumwa as I danced southeast with the storm into the corner of Iowa before finally letting it overtake me and heading to Mt. Pleasant for gas, a snack, and to prepare myself for a long drive home and to catch a 7 AM flight out of Ohare the next morning. Yes, that plane ride sucked, but I had fresh tornado footage to watch for the entire 2.5 hour flight. I wouldn't change a thing. Except maybe the flight, you know... make it a little bit later in the day.

Video:

 

[Ethan Schisler]

I had an outstanding chase in Central/Southeast Iowa on last Thursday. Apologies for the late report, but I witnessed 5 tornadoes between Prairie City, Iowa and Leighton, Iowa with another further southeast toward Keosoqua, IA that was heavily rainwrapped around dark.

I left Galesburg around 12pm after eating lunch and headed toward the Newton, Iowa area for target. I'm glad I left as early as I did because storms went up even earlier than I anticipated. I was expecting a 4pm initiation time and by 2pm as I was heading out of Iowa City on 80, storms were already gaining supercell characteristics near Des Moines. With a warm front positioned to the ESE across the area, strong instability along with great low level shear, I expected a few tornadoes to occur from these storms before they grew upscale. I got on the storm near Prairie City, Iowa where I caught the very tail end of a rope tornado that other chasers had documented earlier on. Very thin needle like tornado pertruding from a lowered area on the southwest edge of the storm:

[url=https://flic.kr/p/KM5Uf6]NW Prairie City, IA Tornado by ethanschisler, on Flickr[/URL]

Just to my south another wall cloud was forming on the southeast side of Prairie City, Iowa. A funnel cloud quickly developed and I saw some debris get kicked up before it got rainwrapped from my point of view. Video still looking south/southeast:

[url=https://flic.kr/p/26GRzFA]Prairie City, IA tornado 2 by ethanschisler, on Flickr[/URL]


My south option here was closed, so I had to go east toward Reasoner, Iowa and then south. This cost me some visibility of the storm, however I got a spectacular shot of the RFD and a tornado on the ground underneath the storm between Reasoner/Monroe, Iowa looking southeast. This would have been the same "stovepipe" tornado that many others documented to my southeast near Monroe:

[url=https://flic.kr/p/26GRABo]Monroe, Iowa Tornado 2 by ethanschisler, on Flickr[/URL]

[url=https://flic.kr/p/26GRC4G]Monroe, Iowa Tornado by ethanschisler, on Flickr[/URL]


I am a sucker for good storm structure, so it didn't help that I stopped here to take in the sky and enjoy the beauty that was before me. Not to mention I had probably 70 MPH winds from the RFD that were at my back, hence the blurred foreground. Two of my favorite shots I've taken while storm chasing.

Back on the chase, I zig zagged the Iowa road network east/southeast, which isn't very good in this area where there is evidently a river valley and cell service is also bad. I came back into great visibility of the storm east of Monroe where the tornado had lifted and I had a view of a large and very wide wall cloud. It was clear to me that the storm was going to plant a significant tornado at this point. I got a mile southeast and on the NW side of Pella, I had a great view looking south/southwest of a large cone tornado with debris surrounding it. I stopped in a residential area and had the tornado pass about a mile to my south with a loud waterfall noise and RFD winds in excess of 70-80 mph. We had lots of tree branches breaking off and covering the road, which hindered the pursuit. Here is a DSLR shot that I got of the Pella, Iowa EF3 followed by some video stills on the north side of town:

[url=https://flic.kr/p/KM5Xdk]Pella, IA EF3 Structure by ethanschisler, on Flickr[/URL]

I'll upload the rest onto another post under this one, ST limits my image posts to 7 for some reason.

 

[Ethan Schisler]

Pella, IA EF3 Tornado Close by ethanschisler, on Flickr

Pella, IA EF3 Tornado by ethanschisler, on Flickr

I turned back east down a paved road and got a bit further southeast and watched the large tornado come out of the east side of town looking due south with a spectacular view. This was the same long duration tornado from my vantage point. We were just on the northeast side of town here:

Pella, IA EF3 Tornado 3 by ethanschisler, on Flickr

Pella, IA EF3 Tornado 6 by ethanschisler, on Flickr

Pella, IA EF3 Tornado 7 by ethanschisler, on Flickr

Pella, IA EF3 Tornado 4 by ethanschisler, on Flickr

After watching this large stovepipe tornado tear away at the ground for several minutes it started getting rainwrapped again from my point of view and similarly from others point of view as well, although it was clear it had gotten noticeably larger again, it was only probably 1.5 miles to my SSE here. This was a wide angle shot:

Pella, IA EF3 Tornado 5 by ethanschisler, on Flickr

I got onto the main highway about a half mile from here and continued southeast, I watched what was either a continuation of this long lived EF3 NW of Leighton, Iowa or another tornado. I haven't gotten around to processing the video from this part of the chase, but it was another cone with some wild vortices under it. From @Devin Pitts video though, I'm betting its the ending stage of the Pella, Iowa EF3.

I followed this storm southeast where it cycled through several more wall clouds, although appeared to be struggling with inflow/outflow balance. There was a funnel cloud directly after the Leighton/Pella tornado dissipated, but it was out of my drivers side window and couldn't get a good shot of it.

On the northwest side of Ottumwa, Iowa, radar showed the rotation ramping up again and even though there was a significant amount of precipitation under the wall cloud, I thought maybe there was something hidden inside there. There was a couple of tornado reports in this area, although I haven't heard anything official from DMX on any tornado touchdowns, so this is inconclusive, some good HP structure though!!

 

[Ethan Schisler]

[url=https://flic.kr/p/29os6JW]DSC_7410 by ethanschisler, on Flickr[/URL]

I followed the storm all the way south to the Missouri border where I got caught into some hellacious winds on the north side of Keosoqua, Iowa....with debris in the air as well. I had lost radar data going into town and based on my situational awareness I believed the storm was mostly outflow....based on the KDVN survey, I was wrong. I was very close to an EF1 tornado on Highway 1 that had developed and crossed over the highway around the same time I dropped a SN report of 80 mph winds. Definitely a lesson to be more aware and when I lose cell phone service, to back out of the situation. We decided to end the chase after this hairy moment and headed for supper and then home. BUT it wasn't over with here.....we had one of the best sunsets I've ever seen storm chasing near Burlington, Iowa. Here are a few of the DLSR shots that I got:

[url=https://flic.kr/p/28nfm6w]DSC_7501 by ethanschisler, on Flickr[/URL]

[url=https://flic.kr/p/Mk2iad]DSC_7513 by ethanschisler, on Flickr[/URL]

[url=https://flic.kr/p/KM6cqi]DSC_7495 by ethanschisler, on Flickr[/URL]

[url=https://flic.kr/p/KM7ocB]DSC_7515 by ethanschisler, on Flickr[/URL]

Sorry for all the photo links, but this was a chase where I took a lot of photos and 98% of them were keepers!! So with 5 tornadoes on the day, this was my best chase of the year. Yeah sure I had a few navigational blunders due to some closed roads and such, but there is nothing I can do about that, so I'll enjoy it for what it was. It saddens me to hear about the damage in Pella, but I'm glad that nobody was killed. Property can be replaced, human lives, can not.

 

[Winston Wells]

Driven more by a sense of desperation than anything else, I knew that I would chase this day despite SPC's and DMX's less-than-enthusiastic forecasts leading up to this event. I'm about four and a half hours from Des Moines from my home in west-central Illinois, and I had to teach a class until noon, so I knew that I would be cutting it close. I was counting on the morning runs of the HRRR to verify with a supercell or two moving east/southeast from central Iowa, so I hoped to at least reach a broad area between Mount Pleasant and Grinnell by the late afternoon.

Unfortunately, storms fired just north and east of Des Moines earlier than I had anticipated. When the Bondurant cell went tor-warned I was still headed north on US 218 between Mount Pleasant and Iowa City - a long way away. So, I quickly turned west on IA-92 and tried to get to Oskaloosa as fast as I could. By the time I got onto IA-163 - a fast, two-lane divided highway - I had already missed the Colfax, Prairie City, and Monroe tornadoes that this cyclic supercell had produced. About eight miles northwest of Oskaloosa I finally got a view of the storm's base and was able to catch the final few minutes of the Pella tornado as it moved southeast of town. I took the following two photos from the northbound lanes of IA-163. The view in each is to the northwest.





Here's a GR3 screenshot of the storm at this point and my location:



Unfortunately, the tornado remained visible for only a couple of minutes before becoming rain-wrapped. Here's an overview of the storm as the tornado was beginning to fade from view. A nice clear slot is visible on the left and the storm's gust front and precip core are just above the trees on the right:



I then quickly turned around and headed back southeast on IA-163, stopping a couple of times to see if the storm was producing again. On a side road that went west to Leighton I caught this small funnel to my west. I'm not sure if this was a new attempt or simply the Pella tornado dissipating:



The storm then began to blob out, and it seemed pretty apparent that its long tornadic phase was finally over. Still, I decided to let the storm chase me back home to the southeast, so I stayed just ahead of it on IA-163 through Oskaloosa, Eddyville, and Ottumwa. I dived south on IA-16 east of Agency, caught up with Colin Davis, and then headed further southeast toward Keokuk. Here's what the storm looked like from US 218 just north of Keokuk. The view is to the west:



After crossing the Mississippi back into Illinois, I decided to sample the core and then slowly follow the storm southeast from behind. As evening fell I stopped briefly in Quincy, Illinois and was treated to some nice lightning from a trailing cell to the north. I was home and asleep by 11 p.m., a great end to a chase that will likely be the only highlight in what has otherwise been a disappointing season for me.