2024-12-14 REPORTS: MO

[Dan Robinson]

Well, this is a first: a tornado during a winter storm trip. I originally embarked on this trip to cover the freezing rain from Kansas into Nebraska on Friday, ending up in Omaha for a high-impact event there (that video is here). Thanks to the chaos in Omaha, I did not get done shooting there until 10pm, quashing my original plans of heading to eastern Iowa for the ice storm on Saturday. With the late hour, I would not have time to sleep and make it to southeast Iowa at the early morning hour of the storm's peak. So, I turned my attention to a narrow zone of low-level CAPE models were pretty insistent on developing into the core of the main low in central Missouri, thanks to a dry slot wrapping in. The first visible satellite images confirmed this was indeed happening, so I headed south to Kansas City to await this development.

The first blips showed up southwest of Clinton, so I headed in that direction, intercepting the first cell at Deepwater. I was surprised to see very healthy storms with frequent lightning and copious pea-sized hail. Some hints of RFD were already evident in these storms, but I didn't see anything tighten up at that stage. Roads in this area are tricky, so I had to go back to Clinton and the then east to intercept the newest storm. This one began showing a broad low-level circulation on radar, which I intercepted on the east side of the town of Tightwad (yes, that's its real name). Despite the meager couplet on radar, I was surprised to see a tight circulation and intermittent funnel. As soon as I stopped, some brief wisps of condensation reached the ground. I made a close intercept on Highway 7 east of town, zero-metering the south side of the very weak circulation as it audibly roared through the trees north of the road.

I moved east to get back into position, but was slowed significantly from the next storm in the line dropping more than an inch of small hail on the town of Warsaw.



I didn't get back into position until Versailles, where I managed one more pass of an active supercell. This one was much less organized with no low-level meso evident. After this storm weakened, I was out of road options for further intercepts.

This is the video from that day (main camera and dashcams):

 

[James Wilson]

Good job man! Any December tornado is a win. That's about 70 miles from where I live BUT we had to drive to Denver yesterday lol. Bad luck!

 

[Mikey Williams]

First of all, way to go Dan for sniffing out that Warsaw target! Nailing these tornadoes in this terrain with no forecast or outlook is as difficult as it gets and required a mathematical understanding of the environment, so nice work! This was a day I saw hinted at for a few days. The day or so before, I mentioned it briefly but got crapped on. The night before, the setup was not overly impressive and did not even have a Marginal risk, but was still evident. So to help me decide whether or not to go, I watched some of convective chron's vids and looked at some Davies papers to try and set a standard for a good cold core day.
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Despite the lack of a risk area, it seemed like the setup checked all the boxes, so the next morning, my Dad and I left for central Missouri and decided to stage near Lincoln, MO at the Warsaw Municipal Airport. We then pounce on the first cell erupting at the apex of the arc. Upon arrival, I was surprised by the near-constant thunder, as there was barely 500 CAPE. When repositioning, weak but tight rotation became obvious. Driving through Tightwad, we saw a decent lowering to the west and it began hailing, with accumulation starting. Then as we get onto a bridge over Clinton Lake, it gets very windy with leaves and water vaper going vertically into the air, my Dad and I believe this was the spin-up near Warsaw. As we came around the lake and were headed east towards Warsaw, we see what was now a obvious tornado with rapid rotation off to our northeast. It stayed down as long as we had eyes on it. Simultaneously, there was pea to penny sized hail stacked up a healthy amount reducing everyone on the roads to a crawl. I called in the tornado to 911 and tweeted as it was unwarned, but prolly should have called the WFO.

We then switch attention to the next cell coming up on the arc, which missed us several miles to the north as we traveled complicated roads to position. As we crested a hill, I had a brief view to the north to the new cell and saw a sun-lit, white, clean needle all the way down miles away. They later confirmed an EF0 near Gravois Mills with that circulation. Because of the terrain I only saw it briefly and could not get a camera on it in time.

After a brief stop, we then pounce on our third supercell, but before we even get there, we noticed healthy rotation at the base of a towering cumulus west of Osage, which I scan for a ground circulation as we approach. And sure enough, we round the corner and see a tube of leaves going all the way up to the clouds. We drive into the outer bands of the thankfully weak circulation, so weak it did not damage the shed it hit, but made my ears pop, tried to tear out a tarp, and had a stout rear-inflow. It did not have condensation and seemed to be more of a lanspout/leafnado hybrid and was not confirmed in the data base, but was now our third tornado of the day and 2nd to intercept WITHOUT EVEN TRYING and be unscathed, GENUINELY INSANE.

Continuing on to our third cell, we pull up on it on highway 5 near Linn Creek and Camdenton, where both me and my Dad caught a brief glimpse of yet ANOTHER condensed needle to our north, which again left our view before I got the camera on it, but I was able to capture it at the end of its life near Linn Creek. It was later confirmed as an EFU over the lake days later. This was our fourth and final tor of the day, even tho only 2 were confirmed. Goes to show that even overlooked low-end and difficult environments can pay off!