4/5/10 REPORTS: KY/MO/IA/IL/KS

[Chip Redmond]

Nobody else has anything to report? I suppose we can add to the title if anyone has anything else they want to share.

Early evening I was sitting in the school lab just watching storms fire along the boundary from IL to VA and that's it. Like a half hour later we decided the heck with it lets go see some lightning and convection as it has been a long winter. Plus it would be the first storm for my new Nikon D80 and an opportunity for me to try it on lightning.

To make a long story short-a first attempt at a discrete cell for lightning at 9pm tonight turned into a nightmare as it went supercellular and made a sudden right turn trapping us on a highway with large hail falling. We reported 1.5" hail in the area and probably had a few larger ones mixed in. We also broke in my buddy's car with three large dents on the roof. We gave up trying to get in good position for that storm for lightning and let it pass just trying to get out of the hail. We then went east and dropped south when we finally got a road. We observed some fabulous lightning with the next supercell in line and it displaying the meso associated with it. Some awesome CGs! We also got what we believe to be a large wall cloud. It just stunk that the lightning wasn't going as strong while it passed. Plus terrain was just terrible, it was northern Ky after all. Once it passed we headed back north and took a few great shots of lightning within the updraft towers. Just amazing structure for a storm in this region and it's surprising that even occurred with the single cell hopes we had for the area on departure.

Great first chase!

Video of the hail onslaught is uploading now and I will post pictures along with the full write up hopefully tomorrow.

Chip

 

[John Farley]

Well, if you want to hear how I drove past the only storm that produced a tornado yesterday to get to the Missouri target you can go to:

http://www.johnefarley.com/chase40510.htm

 

[Dean Baron]

This is a copy/past of my chaselog from a different forum:
Not a ton to say. Headed south on I35 towards MO for the warmfront. As I got through Des Moines around 12:45 storms fired well north of the front. The ones around Des Moines looked like crap visually and on radar but the two farther south looked ok on radar. Continued south on I35 to near near Osceola, IA. Pulled off, started the stream, and waited. Dinked around for a while to see what the storms were gonna do and get in position since the motions on them were 40-45 mph so it was unlikely I was gonna be able to stay on them long. Around 2:30-3:00 the storms finally made it to me. I was a bit east of Osceola at the time and was headed west as the storm was going pretty much right over the city. Rain in to some hail that was at least quarter size. There were reports of golf ball size hail with the storm but I cant say whether the hail I saw was that big or not since I didn't pull over to see and there wasn't a lot of it. Got out of the hail and got a view of the "base". Didn't realize how elevated the storm was until I got through the hail/rain. Followed it back east for a few miles. Let it go and started heading back south to Missouri. Spent the rest of the day staying just north of the warm front and watching numerous towers go up, get bases, and then fizzle out. One cool thing was that I ran in to Matt Gingery and Bart Comstock while waiting in northwest MO. Glad I got to meet at least a couple people on the trip. Headed back home, got a speeding ticket in Iowa not more than 2 miles from the MN line. At least the streaming worked well for the day. Here's the one picture I took of the "base" (term used loosely here) of the elevated storm east of Osceola. It had almost an inverted bowl shape to it.

EDIT: MODS, can we add IA to the title? I know it's not much to report, but more than nothing.

 

[Dan Melby]

Had a decent day in S. Central Iowa. Originally targeted extreme SW Iowa because I was praying the RUC would verify. On my way I intercepted the first cell to go 8 miles north of Lamoni. It was high based had some awesome CG's and insane pea size hail.. jk
A cell fired just to the west that looked alot better so I blasted north and intercepted it just south of Osceola. It was high based but produced quarter hail that ended up being about 3 inches deep about 3 miles west of Osceola on HWY. 34.
After losing that cell I ended up in Maryville, Mo. for the rest of the afternoon waiting for what never developed. Had a good time B.S.'n with chasers Craig Maire, Darrin Rasberry and my girlfriend Marcella.
Ended up on cells that fired in NE KS, but they struggled to develop so I packed it up and went home.
Not bad the first chase of the year!

 

[Paul Hadfield]

Well, if you want to hear how I drove past the only storm that produced a tornado yesterday to get to the Missouri target you can go to:

http://www.johnefarley.com/chase40510.htm

If you want to see what I did while driving towards the same storm to produce a tornado this day only to foolishly abandon then have to play catch up with...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv9IpSlR7FE

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Sat in Rockport MO most of the afternoon messing with what I already knew was CRAP Verizon data there. As bad as it gets and still call it data.

Went east chasing deeper looking moisture to about Maryville MO. Gave up and started for home as stuff went in KS. Came back down from Iowa and wound up back to Maryville(yay!). Storms sucked after dark so went back home, dodging bambifest 2010 on MO highways in the rain. Jeesh.

Did a small experiment with star trail stacking a storm at Hamburg Iowa.

Lotta potential doing that if one thinks much about it(all the exposures of the storm and its lightning are also in the stacking).

Then tried Omaha lightning from Council Bluffs. Hardly any CGs though, with that pretty wild looking elevated supecell type thing. Had a couple TVs popping up as it went over Plattsmouth but was never even severe warned. The low cloud interactions with the two tall Omaha skyscrapers was very cool on the backside of the storm, but haven't posted any of that.

 

[Tony Cook]

Funnel cloud near Fortescue, MO

Captured a well-defined wall cloud and short-lived funnel along the MO river between Rulo, NE and Fortescue, MO Monday night. This feature was located beneath a persistent wall cloud. Time is ~8:40 CST:

Full report:
http://twistedtexas.blogspot.com/2010/04/chase-report-5-apr-2010-funnel-cloud_07.html

TonyC

 

[Chip Redmond]

Mike, your pictures never cease to amaze me.

I have finally finished the write up from this chase. I played with the contrast and mid-tones on a few of the shots but they are pretty much as they were taken. For this being my first time using a DSLR on a thunderstorm and I am dam happy! This camera is amazing and after some more practice, I cannot imagine the shots I'll get! Here is the link to the write-up:

http://www.scalialab.com/news/chase_4-5-10.html

Chip

 

[Richard Thies]

I finally had a chance today to post in regard to the tornadic storm in Macoupin and Montgomery County Illinois on April 5th. Included is a YouTube Video Link of the Hillsboro Illinois Tornado although the contrast for filming the tornado was less than optimal. This is reportedly the only tornado in the U.S. that day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDq9uAYCbJI

Nice wall cloud leading up to the tornado. Tornado is at the 5:00 mark of the video for those wanting to skip to it.

Full report at:

http://www.thies-times.com/storms/2010/10Apr05pictures.html