4/10/08 REPORTS: AR / MO / IA / IL / KY / TN / MS

[Karen Politte]

Not much to tell but I may as well make my first REPORT thread of the years.

Jason and I just got home from chasing the grungefest in eastern AR today. We intercepted the TOR-warned cell that moved through southern portions of Little Rock around noon (crap), watched many segments of the same quasi-line of storms slide past us at Lonoke, AR (crap), and ended our day near Colt, AR watching the last sorry-looking (crap) cell belly-slide its way across the state.

Not quite the amazing outbreak we had hoped for - perhaps a lack of instability and insolation coupled with extremely strong shear ripping our pathetic updrafts apart......who knows. It was really unfortunate that we woke up to massive cloud, storm and convective debris first thing this morning, and the atmosphere never really did recover sufficiently. Oh for a pristine atmosphere on the morning of a chase day......

Many thanks to Brian Emfinger for the nowcasting support he provided us around noon with the TOR-warned cell......we were very grateful for this after our data gave-out on us for an hour or so (the only hour of the day where it really mattered, of course!).

KP

 

[Scott Taylor]

Same story for us too Karen. Jason McDonald and myself left work about 2.15 PM in Memphis and intercepted three storms in NE AR, and each one of them was complete crap. We knew we were looking for a needle in a haystack since NOTHING was severe at that point... but we figured it was better than sitting at work.

I got a few images of disorganized bases with wanna-be updrafts being blown over by the strong mid-level winds, but nothing worthy of putting up here. I agree, the instability just wasn't enough to overcome the EML in my opinion.

Scott

 

[Dennis Sherrod]

Well, I can pretty much echo Karen and Jason's report, only I was further NE. Every cell seemed to just get cut to pieces. Had a couple of cells south of Jonesboro that really tried to get it together, but just couldn't hold on. I have even chased as far over as Union City, TN grasping for the elusive one, but no good. Will head south from here for another hour or so.

 

[Colin Davis]

I'll add my "report" from much further north. Since it's technically the same system, I'll also ask the mods to add IL, MO, IA, TN, KY, and any other state that was involved today.

Crap.

Utter crap.

After getting done with practice, I headed southwest from GBG to intercept the northern minisup (the original UIN cell), which had been t-warned for some time. Upon killing it, I was forced to head back east to shoot south on US-67. When I reached Roseville, I went about 8 miles west on IL-116 and found myself a nice little spot with a good view in all directions (as well as escape routes to the north, west, and east, if necessary) about 3 NE Rariton, where I planned to allow the core to overtake me, and emerge within a stone's throw of the couplet.

And what a rainy couplet it was. There was some small hail within the core (maybe nickels?), and a constantly strong SW wind. Then, a BIG gust...but out of the SE. The solid wind shift made it obvious that the couplet had passed directly over me. Although seeing anything is obviously way too much to ask, it was pretty obvious there was no tornado.

I called off the chase almost immediately (storm motion ~65mph), and retired back to GBG, where I met Jarrod Cook, Darin Kaiser, and Scott Kampas for some enjoyable discussion at Steak 'N' Shake.

It was good to get the blood flowing once again, but I feel like a starving man who was fed a cracker.

Temporary relief, but I'm still hungry.

Thanks to Scott for alerting me to the cells' existence, as I was nowhere near a computer for much of the day.

 

[Bill Schintler]

“Back Yardâ€￾ Storm Chase in Eastern Iowa

I went out at 5 PM CDT today on a spur of the moment. Until moments before I left, I had no intention of chasing today. The idea was to leave Iowa City, IA and head west on I-80 to position myself to intercept a tornado-warned cell west of Ottumwa and moving NNE at 50 mph. One last look at the radar (a nice couplet showing up at 8-9kft on the lowest tilt), then I was out the door.

A few notes about the meteorological setup: It was a nearly stacked cold-core low, with a sharp warm front extending into eastern IA from the surface low in extreme southeastern NE. To the north of the warm front – temperatures were in the 40’s, and to the south – in the 60s. The dewpoints were within a degree or two of the temperatures. Of more significance was the enormous degree of directional and speed shear along and just north of the warm front between the surface and about 4000ft. At the surface, winds were out of the east at 20-30 mph, while just 1000-2000 feet above the surface, flow was out of the south at over 40 mph. This was evident during the chase – there was an incredible amount of “motion” in the low clouds. It seemed like everything was rotating. These low-level hodographs along with the very low cloud base heights near the front were ideal for tornadogenesis in areas where even small amounts of instability was attained. A small axis of clearing took place just south of the warm front south of I-80, and conditions were primed for weak tornadoes and low-topped supercells. The downside would be very poor visibility given low cloud bases – so low that the tops of 400ft radio towers were obscured! The fast storm motion and lack of nowcasting support did not help things, either. The best strategy would be to intercept the cell(s) just as it was moving north over the warm front and encountering enhanced low-level shear and lower cloud bases.

Chase details: I arrived in Victor with zero visibility due to fog and low clouds, with a tornado-warned cell 10 miles to my southwest and headed my way. The rain and then small hail started, and I raced east on US-6. As I drove through Ladora, I reached the east edge of the rain shield and suddenly had blue skies ahead. Then I looked to my right (south) and there it was! A wide circulation with small air-borne debris, I estimate about ½ mile away. I sat there for a moment pondering what to do, and came to the determination that it would pass just to my east if I stayed put. I then realized it was headed straight for me! Therefore, I opted to race east on US-6 and get ahead of the tornado. It became rain-wrapped within moments….

Later, I encountered another mini-supercell in the Oxford area, but by this time surface heating and instability were waning as it was nearing sunset, and things were winding down for the day. I’ve had a number of people ask me why I risked chasing fast-moving storms in such poor visibility, especially with no nowcast support. Well, the short answer is, I took a calculated risk. Given the overall lack of instability and based on climatology with such setups, any tornadoes would likely be weak – F0-F1. Additionally, hail would likely be small.

- bill
10 PM CDT, 04/10/08

 

[fplowman]

500 miles.

Played the northern target West of Kirksville, Mo. Hung out in the TOR Warned counties. Nothing worth talking about. Reading SPC reports they tornadoed well into Iowa.

Oh well maybe next time.

 

[Jeremy Ludin]

Joel Wright and I captured a tornado on video and digital stills. In fact, it sprung a nice surprise on us and we actually drove through it heading eastbound on state rt 34 between Cameron and Galesburg, IL. Photos are actually pretty horrible considering I shot at ISO 1600 @ 1/20s. Joel called in the report but apparently was never relayed to NWS since it doesn't appear on the storm reports. I will post video later. This picture is looking NW on US RT 34 around 8 p.m., shortly after actually driving through it and pulling over on 34.

 

[Jarrod Cook]

Almost did not chase today...we were on the fence about the what would transpire, and decided to hold of on our initial NE MO target. Once storms actually did form, we still waited near Peoria since meso-analysis indicated significantly weaker CAPE values east of the Mississippi River. However, once the storms still had rotation and tornado warnings, we went for it. Scott Kampas, Darin Kaiser and myself went and intercepted the storm 1 mile north of Abingdon. Congrats to Jeremy, who apparently saw a funnel/tornado from this storm just miles away from us...it weakened significantly as it approached us. We saw the lowering/inflow portion of the storm but at this point the contrast was so bad we could not accurately identify any rotation. Followed it north into GBG where we called it off and met Colin Davis.

 

[cstrunk]

Here in St. Joseph, I noticed severe warned cells northeast of Topeka, KS. I kept an eye on the radar, and after pondering where to drive to in the country so I could have a decent view to the west. I decided to head south of St. Joseph at about 7:40 PM. I meandered through hills, trees, and horrible roads until I ended up parked with a decent view to the south and west somewhere about 4 miles northwest of Faucett, MO (something like 6-7 miles south of the south end of St. Joseph).

I wasn't really expecting to see anything that exciting, really. I didn't have any data to look at, nor could I even find a radio station giving updates on the weather. I watched the storms get closer and observed a decent looking shelf cloud along the gust front. I sat there as it passed over and the winds blew pretty hard and it rained hard for 5-10 minutes. The rain eventually let up and I noticed an interesting lowering several miles to the west. It looked a lot like a funnel cloud, but since it was pretty dark and I couldn't observe any rotation, I didn't think a lot about it. I slowly made my way back to St. Joseph after that, stopping a couple of times to attempt lightning photography, without much luck.

It wasn't until I got back home and my roommate informed me of the tornado sirens going off in town that I thought any more about what I saw. I got on-line and surprisingly saw the tornado damage report on the south side of St. Joseph. I put 2 and 2 together, and looked at a map to figure out where I was in relation to the damage and the apparent funnel I observed. I realized that I am 95% certain that what I saw had to be related to the tornado report in south St. Joe. The times, location, and damage reported all add up.

Sadly, I don't have any pictures. I still haven't mastered the art of low-light photography, so I didn't even think about taking a picture of the strange cloud feature I noticed. It probably would have turned out to be pretty close to Jeremy Ludin's picture in his post.

Sorry for the long post, I just thought I'd share my random "intercept" with you all.

After watching the news, it appears that a house collapsed on itself along with roof damage to other homes nearby near Grant and Virginia streets in St. Joseph. There was one injury reported.

 

[Brandon Sullivan]

Well, got off school at 3 and picked up the chase buddy..

We had varying opinions on where to go, we had buddies headed toward KIRK, but I knew that the clearing would benefit us the most in KUIN area..

We decided to go to KIRK, but after stuff got poppn in Eastern MO, we mutually decided to head back southeast and catch the storms going up, seeing that they were closer to home anyways.. By this time we were in Central Clark County, so we doubled back and headed down US-61 to catch the Severe Warned Cell in Shelby/Monroe/Marion counties... On the way it went severe warned, so we were getting pumped, with a very nice couplet on radar..

We arrived and were able to pull off to the side of the road to watch it move in from the Southwest. We stayed in position while the other chasers with us went back north. I called in a nice Wall Cloud to the Southwest, and a Tornado Warning came out soon thereafter.

It started to look like it may head north of us, so we turned around and headed North toward lagrange, and the storm was bout to go right over us..
All of a sudden I see multiple ( 2 or 3 ) power flashes!! The pickup and semi in front of me, slam on their brakes, and almost wreck, with the semi in the other lane jackknifing and going into the ditch, with poles and live lines being thrown across the road.. I look just ahead, and see the tornado going right across the road no more than 500 foot in front of us. Assuming the power lines were hot, I put it in 4 wheel drive and crossed through the median to get to the other lanes, and headed into KUIN to head back north, to get back with the cell again. We intercepted the same cluster and rode em home...

A very very nice chase day indeed.. Nothing spectacular, but quite an adrenaline rush. Had some pics of the lowering, but nothing of the random tornado, as it was so surprising. ( Not so much surprising that it happened, as it was surprising that it happened right there, thats the problem with radar that updates ever 3-5 minutes, and with such a low level grunge environment, it was hard to pick out key surface features up close..

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

Waited til the last second today and then headed down Interstate 72 towards Quincy.

Intercepted the supercell south of the cell that Brandon caught the tornado on and shot these photos near Payson, Illinois.

Instability was lower on the Illinois side of the river so things became really mushy really fast. Since I have an 8 am class tomorrow morning I called the chase off pretty early once I was pretty sure my tornado viewing chances had expired. Made my way to highway 136 and started my way east. Stopped briefly to chat with Skip Talbot and Chad Cowan and was home by 11.

Wish I'd had time to go to southern Iowa, but I knew I'd never make it back in time to be able to function tomorrow morning.

 

[Joel Wright]

Well, today turned out quite a bit different than I had expected. Had to work until about 3. Was thinking about chasing if things looked good, but when I got home from work I was actually not too excited. Lots of clouds still in place south of the warm front. Storms to the south seemed to be sapping some moisture. The watch that was issued for Iowa and Missouri was just a svr thunderstorm watch. Just wasn't thrilled.

Then, the storms seemed to ramp up in intensity. Started getting some tornado warnings in northern Missouri and southern Iowa. The cells in northeast Missouri were looking pretty good too, and looked like they could go nuts. So, after talking to Jeremy on the phone for about 10 minutes, we finally just said screw it and left. Keep in mind it was already almost 6pm! We were a bit concerned we'd run out of daylight, but decided we'd just get lightning shots if and when that happened.

We scooted on down I-74 to Galesburg by about 7pm, and then went west on state route 34. There were some tornado warnings to the southwest for a cell heading in our direction. We ended up near Cameron Illinois just in time for the warning to get cancelled. Argg. We weren't very happy at that point. Then a new warning was issued, but just a severe thunderstorm warning. It stated destructive winds over 70mph were likely with the storm so we decided to let it roar through. Well, it ended up being just a torrential rainstorm with not much wind.

As we headed back east towards Galesburg, we noticed a blocky looking base with a nice sheared tower extending up from it. This was right on the tail-end of the cell that just hit us. As we drove under it we were suddenly hit with a VERY strong gust of wind that blew us completely over into the other lane. This scared the crap out of us. Looking to the left (north) Jeremy spotted a rapidly rotating lowering so we quickly pulled over. A funnel was seen moving quickly away to the north. The condensation never reached the ground. We assumed that was we drove through was the actual circulation, but since we never seen the actual condensation hit the ground, it's a bit disappointing. I guess sometimes the condensation doesn't always make it to the ground.

Anyway, the funnel quickly lifted, and then reformed to the northeast under a different part of the wallcloud. It quickly moved away and we were wrapped in rain taking away our view of it.

So, it turned out to be an interesting day afterall I guess. For getting such a late start, I guess we can't be too disappointed.

We'll probably post a video clip here in the next few days...

 

[Adam Lucio]

To make a long chase short, We intercepted the same storm Jeremy Ludin posted his picture from. All our data had been lost for about 15 minutes prior so we based our positioning off the NOAA radio mentioning the storm was moving north at 65mph!

We sat at routes 67 and 116 with the storms rear flank and precip core in great view, thinking everything would pass infront of us we started rolling the cameras, about 5 minutes later we realized the storm was booking northeast, with poor east options and an insane storm motion we just decided to sit and ended up getting cored by pea-dime size hail while the possible tornado passed behind us. Driving into HP bear cages wasn't in the cards for todays game.

Shortly after that a pickup truck towing a trailer ran me off the road and I ended up fishtailing and sliding backwards into the muddy ditch/median in the middle of US-67. No damage done [although the door ajar alarm beeps even when the door is shut now] and once I got yanked out by a tow truck at the cost of 75 bucks I called it a day and headed home. Once i wiped out I was able to call Danny to let him know and they got the guys liscence plate when he passed them too...I doubt anything will come of it.

Nowhere near as great as expected in the past couple days, but I'm glad my target area saw some action, and I didn't let SPCs "negative" outlook deter me from going out, and its always nice to further my knowledge of the roads that make up the state in which I live.

Congrats to all who bagged!

 

[Chad Cowan]

Chased the low-topped sup's in wrn IL with Skip Talbot. Decided against playing catchup with the big cell near Quincy (pics 1&2) and instead targeted the mini-supercells (pics 3&4) trying to develop south of I-72 near the MS river. There was some great supercellular structure for how small these storms were; I guess thats what a 70kt LLJ beneath a 100kt mid-level jet streak will do for you. It's just a shame we couldn't get a few hundred more joules of instability. Regardless, it was great to be back out there again after a long winter (pic 5).

Please excuse the on-the-road photoshopping
All images (c)opyrighted

 

[Quintin Erdman]

Iowa chasers chase Missouri

A good day was had by our chase team in Northern Missouri. Radar Cmdr. Kevin Sarazin and I set out for Bethany MO leaving Ames IA around 2:00pm. About 10 miles out of Bethany, GRLevel3 showed a Tornado Warning right in front of us. Needless to say we took this as a good sign. A valiant effort was made to catch up to the Tornado, but unfortunately it had disappeared before we could get a visual.

We followed the storm northeast out of Bethany and did some zigzagging on the perfectly flat Missouri roads and ended up coming to a T intersection at 139 and M just a mile shy of the Iowa boarder in Putnam Co MO. We stopped and agonized over whether to follow the already tornadic storms in southern IA, or head back south. Thinking that storms may fire closer to the triple point, we decided to head in that direction, even though the wind fields didn't look as impressive.

On our way west we decided to pick up a weak cell that was isolated just behind the line, west of Princeton. When we got within visual, it had a very nice wall cloud and a weak funnel. Deciding to give this one a chance we followed it back north on 65 where it became tornadic in Mercer County MO at South Lineville. We followed the storm into Decatur Co IA at Lineville where it began to fall apart. The storms to the east and the poor environment killed any chances of another tornado. (See storm evolution below!)

Our chase was over at this point as we drove an hour south to meet up with Ryan Pfannkuch for dinner. The Applebee’s in Chillicothe MO had the best atmosphere of the day, hint hint.

We will examine our film later for more information and possibly post it later. We are currently assessing a delayed LSR.

Things that went poorly

-We had some equipment problems pre-chase, that delayed our departure leading to us missing the tornado in Bethany MO.
-Storm movement and the number of cells made the chase difficult; however it made for good practice to keep us on the ball and to make quick decisions.
-Missouri net sounded awesome, too bad the antenna I ordered last week didn't arrive on time.
*Ask Ryan Pfannkuch about his chase!

Things that went well

-We got a tornado and good film of it!
-The custom antenna mag mount worked perfectly!
-With the new antenna array, Sprint Mobile Broadband performed without flaws and we even saw a -29db rating. Consistently we were in the -40 to -50 db range. If you know anything about cell phone db, that was amazing. Couldn't have gotten a better signal if we would have plugged it into the tower. (See picture)

(The setup is EX720 Novatel, 819 Cyfre Directwire Amp, and a Super Trucker antenna!
-GRLevel3 with all the added placefiles via Allison House helped with chasing.
-Finally, meeting up with a good friend and cute waitresses for dinner, is always a good time!


Quintin and Kevin

K4ISU

(This post was made on our way back home, thank you Sprint!)