4/4/10 REPORTS: OK/MO/IL

[Michael O'Keeffe]

Intercepted the beast that tracked from Leavenworth, KS through Carrollton, MO and eastward but broke off of it at Carrollton. Anyway we got hammered with hail to golfball sized near Excelsior Springs and then got lucky intercepting a beautiful white funnel on the backside of the storm near Lawson, MO that lasted nearly 5 minutes. We then played catch up before calling it a day before the tornado warnings were issued. A great unexpected chase!!

I will likely get a video up later tonight or tomorrow morning.

 

[Greg Ansel]

Good Storm

Followed the storm from KC to just southwest of Moberly. Lot of Precip, great scud and eventual wall cloud that formed and dissipated several times before we saw 115 and 92 couplets on Baron. Got some video, hope to post later on. Good appetizer for the next few days!

P.S. Nice to see other chasers out today!

Greg & Lydia
Team Remora

 

[Ben Holcomb]

Got some crazy winds near Macomb, IL today. You can read my blog entry here

My Video:


Glad to finally get out of the house and into some adverse weather!!!

 

[Jeremy Ludin]

Short and sweet. Joel Wright and I intercepted the tail end charlie as it neared Keokuk. Some pretty decent structure for our first chase of the season. We mainly just needed to shake off the rust, but it ended up being a surprising little storm!

 

[Joel Wright]

Interesting first chase of the year I guess. Given the lack of low-level moisture we can't complain too much. At least we didn't have to worry about HP monsters lol.

Anyway, as Jeremy said we caught the tail-end storm of the northern line. It had a pretty impressive hail core on radar for a time west of Keokuk. The wall cloud looked somewhat impressive for a little bit near Keokuk, but then it sort of dissolved. It made several attempts at reorganizing, but the lack of good surface moisture was definitely taking its toll. We were also lucky in avoiding hail today, so that's a plus I guess.

 

[Jeremy Jones]

Mods can OK be added to this thread?

I didn't have the time, nor the budget to drive into the target area today, so I chose to play around up in Northern Ok. I ended up stopping at a rest area about a mile North of US 412 on I-35. I watched the Anvil of the Cell going up North of Clinton, and was watching the building towers of the cell that ended up between Enid and I-35. Caught 2 decent CG's shots from this spot, then I dropped South to US 64 where I ran down my #2 Battery for my Nikon... ended up bagging well over 20 Anvil crawlers from the approaching Clinton Cell, which was at that point now SVR warned. I called it a night after my batteries died! Very pleased for my first chase this season I'll try and post a couple more shots tomorrow!

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

I didn't "chase" today, but intercepted the severe warned cell near Bloomington, IL around 9 PM. I ended up sticking to Easter commitments, but needed to return to northern Illinois tonight so I plotted my departure to coincide with the line reaching the Interstate 39 corridor. I ended up intercepting the formerly tornado warned cell from the Peoria area that I believe a few people were on. The cell was severe warned at my intercepting time, but I only reported pea sized hail and 35 mph winds. I managed a few decent lightning shots as the storm entered Leroy, Illinois.

Those are all at 10mm, so that last bolt is not very far away at all. Unfortunately some rain ahead of the storm left me with a nice splatter of rain drops on the lens just in time for that bolt.

 

[John Farley]

Owing to a late start after Easter commitments and a lot of things I needed to do, I had opted earlier not to chase, despite noticing a nice combination of instability and shear on the RUC forecast for a small area north of Columbia, MO. But later in the evening, when the supercell that formed west of Kansas City had made it all the way into IL, I changed my mind.

First, I just videotaped the anvil crawlers to my northwest from my backyard. But when the storm became tornado-warned again as it approached Macoupin County, I decided to undertake a rare (for me) night chase, since the storm had stayed isolated and on the same eastward track for so long, and since it would be a very short drive to reach it.

Got some decent lightning video as the storm produced up to golfball hail in Macoupin County - nice to see a long-track supercell that had been tornadic, even though it turned out not to be when I intercepted it.

Full report with more pictures and a couple Youtube clips of the lightning at:

http://www.johnefarley.com/chase40410.htm

 

[Chris Heater]

As with a few other chasers, we intercepted the long lived supercell that moved in from Missouri in Jerseyville, IL. For a brief time it was downgraded to just a severe thunderstorm warning, but I figured it was just cycling. Started heading east out of Jerseyville and sure enough it went back to a tornado warning. At the same time...we lose our data as we discover a big dead area around this part of IL. Knowing there was a possible tornado...but not realizing how big the hook echo was we stopped and faced west looking towards the area of interest. Still looking at our video, we at least had a nice wall cloud but not sure about any funnel clouds or such. The picture below is courtesy of Skip Talbot...this was when I had no data, and was blind to the fact we had a nasty storm behind us

We chased this thing all the way to near Litchfield, with the help of fellow members/chasers here at Stormtrack (Wes Carter and Rocky Watson). We arrived in Litchfield just about the time the sirens had finished going off and sure enough there was a wall cloud right in front of us. I had sat just west of Litchfield for a couple minutes when Rocky called and told us to MOVE cause the possible tornado was near Litchfield with a TVS just west of town close to our SN icon. On our video...you'll see us getting the hell out of dodge. I guess it was around this time my SN icon went yellow the same time the TVS was over us. Long story short...a great chase, although not doable with Rocky and Wes. And I don't care to repeat our close call in Litchfield either! I'll post a picture of what Rocky saved when we were in Litchfield when he sends it to me

 

[Adam Lucio]

Got on the first monster supercell that formed east of KC just south of Clifton Springs, MO

I have reason to believe a non condensed rain wrapped tornado moved/formed probably no more than 100 yards from me. Once I upload the footage it will speak for itself.

There is youtube video taken of a tornado about a mile west of where I was; only a few moments before my encounter. The storm also went tornado warned just as it was on top of me. I was looking straight up at a rapidly rotating wall cloud when all of a sudden I heard the loudest roaring winds I have ever heard. The road I was on went straight into this thing so I had to back up and let it pass to my south where I was then swallowed by incredible winds feeding directly into this rotation as is passed to my south. At this time Jesse and Brad were about a mile east of me and you can clearly see the rapid rotation in their video.

They were strong enough to rip the rain guard off the passenger door.

Here is a radar shot a few moments after the warning came out, tornadoes were reported after this but I never encountered a whole lot of damage.

Full account will be posted by the end of the day today with the footage of this encounter.

 

[Adam Lucio]

Full report including the footage now online:

http://www.aerostorms.com/040410.php

 

[Ben Holcomb]

Full chase account and footage posted http://www.benholcomb.com/Chase-Accounts/20100404

 

[Chris Allington]

I was also on the storm that initiated near Leavenworth and dropped off of it as we were approaching darkness and tired of playing catchup on crappy roads near Keyetsville, MO.

Here is the storm NE of Excelsior Springs quite a ways:

And a verticle composition of what appeared to be a disorganized vault area:

We ran out of east options so the wall cloud and RFD basically ran us over:

We finally caught up with the storm one more time just SE of Keyetsville (SP?), MO...

We finally let it pass us by and shot the back of the updraft with the wall cloud undernearth... this would be after it was tor warned but we couldn't see much from our vantage point behind the storm:

Ready for May when things aren't going 55mph in not the greatest of road networks... still a fun time, just spend alot more time driving then taking photos I suppose. Got a bit of hail video I most post a link to later as well.

 

[Chris Heater]

I have a chase log from this chase. It was a night time chase...and I was one of only a few I know of that dared chase this late. Check it out below. We also have video up

http://midscarteam.blogspot.com/2010/04/april-4th-2010-chase-log.html

http://midscar.phanfare.com/

 

[David Hoadley]

I just looked at Adam Lucio’s excellent, detailed report of the April 4 tornadic storm SE of Salisbury, MO and re-examined my notes from that day. I picked up this storm west of Carrolton, and it chased me 85 miles and 2 1/2 hours across Missouri to SE of Moberly. I waited a little too long for it to reach Carrolton, near its beginning (“tennis ball…hail covering the ground” north of there), before turning east. With storm speeds of 45-50MPH, I almost didn’t allow enough time for the occasional turns in the road, a few miles north, a few miles south, and small town traffic. So, the storm base repeatedly caught up and small to moderate hail pounded the car roof before I could escape (fortunately no dents). It was a real adrenalin rush all the way.

Approaching Salisbury, I could see the inflow begin to tighten up, feeding into a notch in the wrapping base just north of the highway --but at the same time large hail began falling from the anvil! I knew a tornado was likely developing back in the notch --but didn‘t want to lose a windshield. I turned south on State Hwy 5 at 6:39PM just west of Salisbury (15 minutes later, it had 1 3/4” hail!) and drove down to Forest Green, where I turned east on Hwy T at 6:47PM. Now the outflow base was wrapping up to the north, and my view of the Salisbury tornado was blocked. As I entered Roanoke, the tornado warning siren went off and, at the same time, an unusually strong west wind suddenly increased with thick, blowing dust. Looking later at a Google map for that location, I measured back from Higbee, where I turned south on Hwy B at 7:08PM. I was a few miles east of Roanoke at the time of the 2 SPC tornado reports at 7PM --and apparently about a mile between them. However, I saw neither. My attention was focused on the cell base a mile or two north, so it is possible there were one or two quick spin-ups nearby, that I didn’t see.

"0000 [7PM] TREES DOWN EAST OF 129 ON B HIGHWAY, JUST EAST OF ROANOKE. DEBRIS SEEN ON GROUND. TORNADO ON THE GROUND FOR 2-3 MILES.... UNCONFIRMED."

In any case, I can’t confirm those two tornadoes and wanted to assure others, who were nearby, that they apparently didn’t miss anything photogenic east of Roanoke. Quite a few mileage discrepancies were noted, which may be normal with multiple reports at times of stress (e.g. NOAA Weather Radio reported the first tornado 4 miles SE of Salisbury at 7PM. Then SPC reported two tornadoes on Hwy B east of Roanoke at the same time. Adam Lucio’s radar map shows circulation at 7:01PM 9 miles ESE of Salisbury and 4 miles NE of Roanoke.). I guess this is normal. Anyway a great storm and good start to the season.

- - - David Hoadley