2025-05-16 REPORTS: MO/AR/IL/TN/KY

[Dan Robinson]

First, my tale of woe. I started at home, awaiting confirmation that St. Louis would indeed be in the clear before heading east/south to the most favored area for tornadoes in southern Illinois. The dewpoint at Lambert Airport was 52F at 1pm, and although a supercell was organizing and entering the western metro, I thought that there was no way it would be able to do much. Additionally, the storm was initially tracking northeast and it appeared it would miss the city altogether.

When the storm produced a big RFD surge near Chesterfield, I started heading into downtown just in case it had visible structure over the city. I made it to O'fallon, 15 miles out, when the RFD surge appeared it would be a HP mess. Also about that time, the storm resumed a northeasterly motion on the next couple of radar scans. It appeared to be on course to move harmlessly off to the north (aside from hail). Another rapidly organizing storm was just to my south and heading for an I-64 crossing to my east, so I turned around and began heading that way.

About 10 miles later, I saw the south end of the RFD surge of the STL supercell was relaxing and developing a strong convergence signal - right over I-64, due west of downtown. It was obvious what was about to happen, and I frantically exited at the first opportunity and headed back west. It was too late.

I've posted before about how many tornadoes and great storms I've missed (in both the Plains and the Midwest) due to my home target bias - a bias I practiced with fervor specifically to prevent me from missing events like today. And I still missed it. Why? Because STL storms often do these fake-outs and last-minute about-faces that seem designed to make a chaser miss them. Or maybe I'm just a horrible forecaster and chaser. It's probably the latter, but it sure does feel like St. Louis storms don't like giving you much of a heads up when they're about to do something noteworthy.

Strangely enough, I'm not even mad. I'm more just laughing, partly at the exposure that I have no idea what I'm doing plus the irony of it all. I *predicted* this would happen (even posting as much in an ST thread last year).

Anyway. I ended up on a storm at Irvington that slowly shriveled as I kept pace with it to Salem. I gave up on it there and dropped back south to Mount Vernon to regroup. There were no good options within 70 miles, and I was ready to just give up and go home. As I pondered the calamity of the day, I realized a new supercell down near Sikeston was within striking distance at Marion, so I thought I'd go keep it honest. I expected it to die right as i arrived on it, as instability was dropping off to its east on mesoanalysis. Plus, a lot of days like this tend to not get better as they go.

I arrived in Marion to see the storm organizing rapidly, with an RFD surge focusing a circulation to the southwest as the entire storm began a hard right turn. A few larger hailstones began crashing onto Highway 13, and I felt I risked getting cored staying at that latitude. I dropped south on North Refuge Road and managed to get a close-up of the tornado developing and crossing the road.

There was no way to keep up with this, so I headed down to Paducah for the next supercell in the line. The cold front caught up to it and killed it before it arrived, ending my chase.

So, I didn't bust, but I failed in my 14-year quest to not miss a historic/significant tornado in St. Louis visible behind the skyline. Will I keep my home target bias after it's not only cost me so much, but ended up failing anyway? Who knows. I know it will be 60-70 years before something like that happens again, if history is any indication. It's the first time a tornado was visible behind the Arch since it was built 62 years ago, anyway. Likely not in my lifetime. The silver lining is that it wasn't a Lincoln, Nebraska 4/26, but a rather poor-contrast non-photogenic one, at least from the typical skyline angles.

 

[Randy Zipser]

Or maybe I'm just a horrible forecaster and chaser. It's probably the latter, but it sure does feel like St. Louis storms don't like giving you much of a heads up when they're about to do something noteworthy.

Dan, I'd be a millionaire by now for all the times I've had to settle for "near-misses!" You're one of the very best forecasters and chasers known to this website. Tornado chasing is a combination of both skill and luck...like being in the right place at the right time and avoiding getting pummeled with gorilla-sized hail! Chasing in/around big cities (or at night) poses many additional risks and dangers that do not make the task any easier. Someday, maybe even this weekend, you will see your "dream" tornado looking through the Arch, but let's hope it's not a repeat of Moore or Joplin...

Also, Dan, FWIW, I can recall a situation in my past similar to yours yesterday, where I had committed to chase the cold front near the triple-point in SW KS but when I had gotten into position up there, the storms blew up early and quickly appeared to go QLCS. So, looking southward toward the TX Panhandle, through the haze ahead of the trailing dryline, I could see what looked like a rock-hard Cb anvil, maybe 50-60 miles away. So, I made the decision to break off my chase and drop south hoping to intercept that storm as it moved northeastward. Well, to make a long miserable story short, I ended up missing several tornadoes that day in both SW KS (those storms did finally get their act together, had I been more patient!) and the TX Panhandle (an isolated supercell I never got to which all the other chasers were on and getting great video of)! Bottom line: what I took away from that chase was that it usually (but not always) is not a good idea to change course during the middle of a chase based upon the earliest convective development, or in my case, radio reports; having patience and staying the course based upon real-time radar data (which I did not have available at that time) usually wins out and more-often-than-not verifies the original forecast thinking. Just my 2-cents worth...

Hang in there!!

 

[JamesCaruso]

Dan, your report drives home how much chasing and the definition of “success” is a matter of personal perspective. I can definitely empathize with your disappointment in not capitalizing on a potentially once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get a tornado behind the Arch (although, if it’s any consolation, it was not very photogenic anyway). Yet you got the Marion tornado, which I failed to get to - so I’m kicking myself for that. Even on your “bad” days you somehow end up with tornados - in my view you are anything but a “horrible forecaster and chaser”!

Other than the fact that you (in my view) succeeded while I failed, my Friday May 17 experience actually had some similarities to yours… I was never planning to chase near the STL metro or in the forests and river valley of southeastern Missouri, nor in the poor terrain of southern Illinois below the latitude of Carbondale. The STL supercell looks like it became a mess once it crossed into IL, I was ignoring the stuff to the south, and I think I was on that same dinky Salem cell that you mentioned, struggling to keep up with it, wondering why it wasn’t developing, and getting further and further away from STL where I had to be for a flight to DFW the next morning (today). Also similar to you, I was about to give up, when I noticed the storm that would produce the Marion tornado. Unfortunately, i was to the northeast of it, and couldn’t get south without being overtaken by the hail core, which I won’t do in a rental vehicle. With a storm moving 50-60 mph, this is not a good situation. Driving east doesn’t accomplish anything, because position relative to the storm is barely changing. You never get the clearance needed to get south ahead of the core. Quick calculations of storm motion relative to GPS ETA showed it might not be possible to intercept the meso even if a hail core wasn’t an obstacle. As the storm raced ahead, the plan to intercept at Carbondale became a plan to intercept at Marion which then became a realization that it just wasn’t going to work. We made a last ditch effort to drop down behind the storm as it was passing the longitude of Marion (as we saw the debris ball on radar) but realized this was pointless, especially since there were no east roads south of the Marion latitude anyway. So at that point we bailed for good.

I feel my main failure was being ready to give up the first time. It was too early in the day to give up on a high-end parameter space, and if I had gone after the Marion storm sooner I might have been able to drop south far enough in front of it to get into position. Also, I can’t remember for certain, but when I did first decide to go after it I think I went toward it a little too much, initially heading west or southwest, instead of straight south.

It was probably also foolish to trust the GPS ETA at any time, for surely my speed to the south would have been impeded by precipitation and possibly even the risk of people stopped on I-57 under overpasses. Not sure if that happened or not, but it’s a risk I should have anticipated, especially after seeing what happened near STL as posted elsewhere by Todd.

 

[Paul Bird]

Day one of my chase trip, couldn’t have asked for a better start. Went straight to SE MO and got on the storm just in time. We ended up on the Marion tornado later in IL, although it was tough to see.

Overall a challenging chase that paid off big!

 

[Tony Laubach]

Top-tier chase for sure across southeast Missouri on Friday... was roaming some old stomping grounds and ended up intercepting three tornadoes in the span of two hours, all within about ten miles of each other there near I-55 north of Sikeston, Missouri. Started the day in Champaign, drove south on I-57 to Mt. Vernon to assess, then after taking the 'scenic route' south toward Sikeston, got on my storms of the day.

All three tornadoes, including the monster Blodgett, were aired live on AccuWeather. Fortunately for me, in the midst of that live hit, I had the wherewithal to grab my Nikon and snag arguably one of my better wall-hangers of my career.



I would then proceed to get onto an overpass of I-55 and film as the tornado crossed the interstate less than a mile to my north. Hands down, the best Missouri tornado of my career, and these, surprisingly, were the first I have successfully chased in this part of Missouri despite five years living in nearby southern Illinois.





Fascinating note; the destructive tornado that went on to hit eastern Kentucky later that evening was the same supercell I documented the first two tornadoes of near Blodgett. That's an impressive feat.

Other note, had my wife and I still been living in the same place we last lived in southern Illinois, the Marion tornado would've missed our home by only a few miles. After Blodgett, I had some work to do for my network, and gave about 10 miles back east on I-57 from Sikeston as the Route 13 (Carbondale-Marion) cell was entering Murphysboro. However, my math indicated that I would arrive to Rt. 13 well behind the storm, so I exited off I-57 and returned to Sikeston, setting up for the Benton storm that would produce my third, brief and much weaker, tornado of the event.



Like you, Dan, I also have a home-target bias; and initially when I arrived in Mt. Vernon around lunch, I was going to stay on the east side of the Mississippi to patrol my southern Illinois home-area. I actually headed west out of Sesser to set up for a few of the cells coming in from Missouri, but the two southern cells approaching Sikeston screamed to me enough where I turned south on US-51 to get down that way. A decision I definitely do not regret. When I made the initial decision to get back north on I-57 after Blodgett, that was my main driving factor, but the math just didn't check out for me in terms of making it up there in time. There's a bit of sting for not being there for that one, no question. I have only ever seen one tornado in my southern Illinois home area (The 2017 Perryville-Vergennes EF-4); and I have chased more than my share of events in this area.



What a day; unfortunately it's had more than its share of awful devastation as well... certainly would argue this event over-performed at multiple levels. I would image damage surveys are going to see many of these tornadoes rated rather high. This will be an outbreak well remembered for a lot of the wrong reasons.