4/18/06 REPORTS: MO

[Brian Stertz]

Just back from a fun chase in/around Chillicothe (Livingston Co. MO). No tornadoes (at least that we saw), but did encounter some good hailbombs ranging from golfball to baseball sized. One such baseball put a small crater in the hood of my car. The supercell was small but pretty mighty. Said a quick hello to Gene Moore on south side of Chillicothe before the big hail showed up, and we had to vacate the scene pretty quick. I will have pics up tomorrow on my site Vortex Times. I really enjoyed the pace of today's chase as storm motions never went above 35mph, and you could actually savor a few moments as the supercell cycled and tried several times to drop a tornado along Highway 36.

This was taken at pretty much the time the supercell was hammering Chillicothe with golfballs and baseballs. Love the structure. This supercell had a pretty mean bite!!

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

I was on the Chillicothe storm as well. It had some pretty impressive structure as it moved into that city. I'll try and get some pics up tonight or tomorrow.

I'm wondering about a hail report they kept talking about on the radio there. They were reporting 3 inch hail hit town(I got some 2 inchers or so on the east side). Later in the evening the one guy said 7 1/8 diameter hail was reported. I thought I heard it wrong and then thought maybe he read it wrong. The other guy on the radio didn't really catch it either. They went over them again later and then the other radio guy caught what he said, lol. The report said they found it on the sw side of town and measured it.....7 and 1/8 inches in diameter. I'm not sure what the deal is with that since I don't see it in the storm reports.

 

[Doug_Kiesling]

I stayed back home for fear of the MO hills and trees today. I was not expecting to go out and chase at all but while taking a walk around one of the lakes in Minneapolis, I noticed some towers going up to my south and west. Nothing is worse then seeing towers go up and being 2 miles from your ride and 12 miles from your gear on a off day that fires...

As soon as I got my gear from home I headed south for to Southern Dakota County MN and was treated to a nice light show for a while.

Here is a screen cap from the dash cam as I was dealing with some pea size and smaller hail.. (exciting)

But the lightning was still cool

 

[Jimmy Deguara]

Hi,

Initially was on the storm in southern Livingston tornado warned supercell - anyone see the reported tornado? I was in its path prior to it being tornado or base ball warned so took an east road option from Carrollton. Bad decision considering the sparse road network. The supercell was still further back.

Got some nice structure as well but not at its best.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

 

[Jerry Funfsinn]

I got on the storm near Chillicothe,MO when it first was severe warned. It did intensify shortly thereafter. I was pretty close and it did exibit weak rotation as it was first tornado warned. I moved east with the storm along 36.I saved the remaining rocket packs I have left for next springs storms, lol. It was refreshing to follow this storm at a reasonable speed and enjoy its awesome presence. I too heard reports of a funnel cloud, a rain wrapped tornado as I entered Chillicothe and hail reports of hen, walnut and baseball although the largest I encountered was pea size.The pics I've posted may be what was reported but based on what I saw I could not confirm a tornado.
A surprisingly good chase in MO on good roads with a slow moving storm.Gotta love the cape, I was treated to some great lightning as I made my way home.

[attachmentid=174] [attachmentid=175] [attachmentid=176]

Jerry Funfsinn
Creative Jetstream

 

[Gene Moore]

Just back from a fun chase in/around Chillicothe (Livingston Co. MO). No tornadoes (at least that we saw), but did encounter some good hailbombs ranging from golfball to baseball sized. One such baseball put a small crater in the hood of my car. The supercell was small but pretty mighty. Said a quick hello to Gene Moore on south side of Chillicothe before the big hail showed up, and we had to vacate the scene pretty quick. I will have pics up tomorrow on my site Vortex Times. I really enjoyed the pace of today's chase as storm motions never went above 35mph, and you could actually savor a few moments as the supercell cycled and tried several times to drop a tornado along Highway 36.
[/b]

Brian, nice to see ya....had to run.....didn't want to crater out my new little jeep (well new to me) on my first chase up north. The hail I saw from the forward flank downdraft (anvil hail in this case) was baseball size. That is, about 3 X 4 inches and oblong shaped. One did hit my roof and it sounded like a bowling ball.....LOL. If the 7 inch report is true that's a record again. It will be interesting to see if they put it in the freezer. As for the tornado report.....hummmm. SPC lists a tornado on the west side of town "doing damage." What I saw was a large ragged funnel, or the wall cloud had morfed into a funnel shape and was rotating, actually more turbulence that pure rotation. It did have a v-shape but became hard to see in the precip. I never saw a tornado, or strong tornadic motion in the lowering, but there were a gaggle of chasers, certainly someone got a shot if it was real?? I hate to miss a tornado, but I got six on this trip north in Nebraska and Illinois. No sense in driving into a known gorilla hail producer for one more.

 

[Darin Brunin]

First of all thank you Matt Jacobs and Mike Johnston for the top notch nowcasting as always.

Dick McGowan, Eric B'Hymer, Jordan Wrecke, and I were on the Chillicothe storm as well and never saw any of the touchdowns either. We started out the day in Higginsville where we ran into guess who? Gene Moore. After talking for a while we continued to wait around Higginsville until the storm to the north fired. We saw what we believe were three funnels(If you count the big bowl shaped wall cloud) but never any that had ground circulation. We made sure that if one did drop we were going to be close enough to see it through the precip. This led to us getting hit by baseball sized hail. Also, there was a pigeon who wasn't so lucky either. It was hit and dropped like it had just been shot with a gun.

After seeing the meso near Chillicothe occlude we started to move southeast but soon called the chase off as it was gettting dark and the appearance of the storm was not all that impressive. The sunset was just absolutely amazing though and probably the best supercell sunset that I have ever seen.. All in all, this day seemed like a piece of cake with the slow storm motions after the past month. It seemed like there was never really any inflow to the storm when it was tornado warned from our position.

Some photos.......sorry about the size.

About 4 miles west of Chillicothe

On the edge of Chillicothe just to the SW of the town

 

[Scott Currens]

Awesome storm structure, tennis ball sized hail, and manageable storm speeds made for my most enjoyable chase of the early season.

Looking south through the highest reflectivity core, I thought the storm was dieing. Turns out the core was all hail so you could see right through it.

Looking west from Chillicothe.

This occluded meso rapped in rain looked quite suspicious at times with low-contrast lowerings and cone shaped funnels.

With the storm approaching Chillicothe I call the NWS and reported the large cone rapped in rain, as "possible tornado" 3 west of Chillicothe. A few minutes later golf ball hail began falling on the west side of town so I repositioned, not wanting to brake a widow this early in the season.

On my way home I too heard the radio station say a called the measured 7-1/4 inch diameter hail on the SW side of Chillicothe. I wonder if they ment 7-1/4 inch circumference.

 

[Mikel Shively]

I was on the Chillicothe storm as well. We started off just south of the town of Carrolton and watched the towers build from a pretty good vantage point there. After watching the towers build for some time, the radar was showing 3 distinct cells forming just to our north. We decided to go North on some county roads to the southernmost cell. After a while, and the storm not getting anywhere, we realized that we had a almost straight shot to the storm to the north that was starting to form a hook on radar. We decided to go to the town of Mooresville to intercept it...That didn't last long. As soon as we got into town, hail forced us to the south along hwy 36, where I took the below picture. The rain band were rotating, although, I also did not see any evidence of a tornado reaching the ground. We continued on East, on hwy 36 pulling off several times to shoot video and pics, while still getting hammered with large hail. We ended up on a almost completely dirt road to the South and East of Chillicothe. A big thanks goes out to the chaser who told us that a road was a dead end even though Street Atlas told otherwise. After exploring some other road options that led us to a grass road and then to a farmers field, it was getting dark and decided to call it a chase. On the way to drop off my chase partner who left his car in Bethany, we also heard the report of 7 1/8 inch hail on the radio. I emailed the radio station about the report this morning. Apparently the report was indeed CIRCUMFERENCE and not diameter. All in all a very enjoyable chase. At least I was able to get out of the car and shoot some video instead of driving 70 mph just to keep up. A video clip is now uploaded to the website.


On Hwy 36 1.5 miles east of Mooresville, looking Northwest

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

SPC lists a tornado on the west side of town "doing damage."[/b]

The radio had some guy out reporting in and he tracked down the damage. He noted some emergency vehicles going to the area too and followed them. All they could find was a road contruction sign blown over.

I didn't see any tornadoes either but was wondering when the rain/hail was wrapped back in there obscuring things.

I wish I could have gotten larger hail as that was my only real goal of the day. I need to pick up a new still camera and bhphotovideo.com hasn't been open. I thought about spending more for one on the way down but thought to myself..."MO....storm structure...??.....not gonna happen, I'll be ok". Well I guess I was wrong. The structure kept pulling me east of the storm instead of playing in the core. After getting some shots on the east side of town I decided to just sit there and see what happens with the hail. Some of those storms really don't give you much warning with small hail. You're just sitting there then bam, oh crap. So I sat through it in the best spot for hail waiting for the point I'd have to close my eyes incase of breaking glass. It was cool to watch some of the larger ones streaking down from the sky and landing in the field. A couple bigger ones hit the back of the car somewhere and sounded fairly nasty. The storm at the time had this vertical wall on the ne side of the updraft. The hail let up but the guy reporting on the radio in town was still getting nailed it sounded like. The updraft seemed to stall and then maybe even pull back west for a bit. This was when it really turned se. I noticed a storm do this in 2002 in ND where it seemed to be pulling west away from you at a point. This would make sense in how the hail acted.

Oh, there really needs to be something done about storm motion reports for the warnings. Man that gets so old. They are off 45 degrees or so to the left so often(since they use some radar indicated warning system). It was funny listening to the radio guys reporting the warnings and at the same time looking at the radar. They're like, well we don't want to say something against the nws but it looks to be moving east to us. It kind of makes the whole warning thing pointless.

 

[Daniel Christianson]

lol i wouldnt say anything the NWS wouldnt, those guys were having a heck of a time, there main radar wasnt working so they were pulling up all thes other radars to try and get info to people, i remember them pulling up the Des Moines radar, oh well just got off work...


Left omaha around 9 am or so and arrived in Hamitlon MO, i topped the tank off and decided to sit out of town a little bit , at this point it was a little warm outside and waiting was boring ;-) , its kind of strange whenever i hear a watch go out or tornado warning, i get goosebumps all over" anyways to point.. watch got issued and i noticed CU field develop, one main storm well from my view was coming towards me and moving northeast, towards Gallitin MO, at this time a Speical Weather Advisory was in effect for the counties, and eventually as the storm got to Gallatin in became severe warned... I wasnt expecting much except some small hail and which was not bigger then penny at most... After that storm had gone north i dropped down from 190 south towards Chillicothe MO, and i was headed towards the storm, it didnt look to impressive except for the hail shaft, i tought i was going to have a little fun with this storm, as it was dropping small hail, well as i continue from Jamesport on 190 things quickly changed from fun to Oh No" the small hail got bigger , and was coming down harder then i hear the report from wx radio , baseball sized hail, there was now way in heck i could get into that crap esp when i have no tree cover no matter which way i parked hail was coming in every direction at me. So i hauled north and got onto FF and sat around till the storm moved a away a bit, then a report of a possible tornado is coming in ver wx radios i haul down to Chillicothe and sirens are blasting, but i didnt see much, and yeah i remember all sherrif's, and spotters foudn was a construction sign blew over.

I followed the storms east on 36 to Brookfield where i called it quits.


Now for the 7 inch hail report, i havent seen any proof yet, but they say it fell in the Donaldson's Dawnsons area, however you spell it, which was pretty close to where the possible touchdwon was at"

thats all i heard since...


I should of gotten behind the storms instead of them devloping in front of me, well basically growing over me..

All In All A Fun Chase

 

[Mikel Shively]

Now for the 7 inch hail report, i havent seen any proof yet, but they say it fell in the Donaldson's Dawnsons area, however you spell it, which was pretty close to where the possible touchdwon was at"

thats all i heard since...
I should of gotten behind the storms instead of them devloping in front of me, well basically growing over me..

All In All A Fun Chase
[/b]

I recieved a reply from the radio station, this is what they had to say:

Hi Michael,

I was "anchoring" our severe weather coverage Tuesday night, and I too was surprised when I received the report of the seven inch plus hailstone, thinking that was mammoth, world-record sized.

Upon checking with the guy who took the call, he said the 7 1/8 inches was the CIRCUMFERENCE (distance around the outside of the hailstone), rather than the diameter.

Thanks for the email to the station earlier. It's always nice to get compliments on our efforts in covering severe weather!

Tom Johnson
Sports Director
KTTN-KGOZ Radio
Trenton, MO
[/b]

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Supercell near Chillicothe MO.

Rest here:
http://www.extremeinstability.com/06-4-18.htm

 

[Kurt Hulst]

Report is up on my blog

http://midwestchasers.com/v-web/b2/index.php?p=95&more=1&c=1

 

[Carla Bisby]

Left as soon as I got off work to head out. Went from STL to near Marshall, back to STL and down to Morse Mill. Saw 4 WCs, no tors. Thanks to Dan for nowcasting.