5/1/10 REPORTS: AR, MO

[Stuart Robinson]

Intercepted a night time cone tornado South of Fair Oaks as it crossed HW 49 in front of me. I was then able to cross the damage path (power poles downed across road ) and continued North . I then picked up the tornado again North East of Fair Oaks where it resembled a wedge? But I am sure was just a larger cone. Note that as the tornado crossed HW 64 it de-roofed a house – I spoke briefly to the owner who said that he was OK with fortunately no injuries - most of the roof was across the road (as well as more power poles) 5 miles further on I got flat tyre – chase over!


0158 PENROSE WOODRUFF AR 3518 9105 ARKANSAS STATE POLICE REPORTED TORNADO ON THE GROUND ON HIGHWAY 49. (LZK)

** EDIT ** I got the date wrong - can this be changed to 05/01/10

 

[Laura Hedien]

Our report for the Fair Oaks tornado-
Position and time- 35.194000;;-90.983000;;N;;3 miles NW of Wick Mill, AR at 0200Z.
Photos and radar capture- http://www.facebook.com/pages/Storm-Clouds-Photographycom/120093531336178?ref=sgm

The topo in AR wasn't too bad where we were. When you're out on a trip with specific dates to chase, you chase whatever you can. Optimal? No but it was a tornado, we were safe and we enjoyed ourselves.
We were on this storm about 30 minutes after it first caught on the radar. On one of our stops, it cut a clear slot about 45 minutes before the LLJ kicked but it wouldn't tornado. It just seemed to be "missing" something prior that.
No injuries- always glad for that.
Laura

 

[Kevin Askew]

Intercepted Cross co. supercell just south of Cherry Valley AR. Rapid movement of wall cloud noted but could not confirm tornado at that time. Moved back where we encountered power flashes in Harrisburg area. Reported to 911 since we couldnt get through to MEM. Damage on SW part of town and without power. COD team hit hanging power line tearing off roof rack. We checked on them they were ok and no injuries in Harrisburg. Reaquired cell at a distance to SW of meso near Trumann where tornado was seen briefly to our NE, report made to 911. I made wrong decision to hit I-55 to track it to Blytheville area and lost it. Great chase and better yet no fatalities.

 

[Joey Ketcham]

Tyler Costantini, Jordan Hamilton and I decided to head SW of Stuttgart and intercept the tornadic cells along 63/79 as they came up from the SW. We saw a couple of wall clouds. We ended up heading back east to De Witt, Arkansas to intercept one of the better looking storms. While passing through De Witt we thought we had saw power flashes off in the distance and while passing through De Witt the power went out.

We continued to follow the storm on Highway 1 out of De Witt where at times we had a good view of the wall cloud. Not really much to report than that.

While sitting along 63/79 got to see this:

 

[Scott Sims]

I intercepted the northernmost supercell in the initial group to fire in S. AR, and watched it cross the river just west of Pine Bluff from a point a couple miles Northeast of Sherrill. Here is the video timelapse of that cell. As I mention in the description, I am optimistically calling this a rain wrapped tornado, some may differ and make a really good argument though. There were two TVS indicators on this meso as this video was taken from about 7:00 - 7:10 pm. I'm guessing one may have been the wall cloud in the foreground and the other the "rain-wrapped tornado" in the rear.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3x6LNO-OLA

 

[jcooper]

We intercepted a brief tornado South of Warren,Ar that briefly touched down.

 

[Brian Emfinger]

I am optimistically calling this a rain wrapped tornado, some may differ and make a really good argument though. There were two TVS indicators on this meso as this video was taken from about 7:00 - 7:10 pm. I'm guessing one may have been the wall cloud in the foreground and the other the "rain-wrapped tornado" in the rear.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3x6LNO-OLA

Yeah, Scott Currens and myself were in that area as well and saw that. We saw it get pretty low several times but I'm not calling it a tornado. Im assuming that since there were so many chasers around the area (with some on the other side of the river) that if it had touched down we would know for sure by now.

That storm was probably the highlight of the day. We intercepted the next tornado warned storm down and then eventually made our way down to DeWitt just behind that strongest storm and called it a day there.

http://www.realclearwx.com/images/2010/05011001.jpg <turkey tower and crepuscular rays (could be the same cloud just later that Joey got)

http://www.realclearwx.com/images/2010/05011002.jpg <1st storm early on when it really began to intensify.

Here is the same feature that was in Scotts video just a bit later... it was lower and looked better than this a bit earlier.

Here is a heavily edited shot from the same feature when it looked the most impressive:
http://www.realclearwx.com/images/2010/05011005.jpg

 

[David Schuttler]

Transformers blowing video

Made it back up to Little Rock from the south and headed west on I-40 towards home. Somehow I timed it to meet the core of the recently downgraded storm on the highway by accident. At about the .51 & .56 mark you can see a couple of transformers blowing just as some small hall had started to drop.

 

[Joshua Nall]

I had planned to travel to E AR today so I could enjoy a view, but the later it got I was worried storms would make it there before dark. Decided instead to head back and catch stuff crossing the Red River valley. All I saw was baby storms. One had some interesting motion under it for a short while just as it was crossing the Red River and hwy 71 in S AR, never tornado warned. I then stayed with the cell that tracked up I-30. Had some marble hail, and really intense lightning shooting out of the inflow/hook area of that storm right at sundown (between Hope and Arkedelphia) that I would have love to have gotten some shots of. Low ragged clouds pushed right at the tip of the precip hook, nice color with the sun having set, lightning just shooting out of there at 45 degree angles... dang... couldn't find an open view.

 

[Paul Sherman]

Started in Stuttgart and Intercepted the 1st and 2nd Pine Bluff Storms, also could not decipher wether these had Rain wrapped Tornadoes or not, it then became apparant that the Feed for these Storms was being choked off by the Main Player down near DE Witt, so blasted South and East and Intercepted just North East of De Witt where we witnessed a Tornado just to the East of Highway 1. Followed this all the way to Memphis and called it a day.

Paul S

 

[Chris Heater]

I have some freeze framing to do on our video but we caught two tornadoes on this day. One near dusk near Hazen, AR that was very low contrast. Barely saw it but another storm chaser close by reported it on the ground. We then continued to follow it, and at one point nearly lost it. Caught back up to it near Penrose, AR and caught another tornado at night. My chase log is below. Successful day...although it didn't live up to the expectations everyone had on this day

http://midscarteam.blogspot.com/2010/05/may-1st-2010-0high-risk-chase.html

 

[Jesse Risley]

It was nice to get out for another extended weekend chase, though I'll gladly take the plains over the craggy terrain of the Arkansas taiga. I and Kevin Crawmer chased the cell that tracked from Union County, AR to the Memphis metro area on Saturday afternoon/evening.

I have posted a report here, though I noticed after returning home that the iris setting on my camera was off, which degraded the quality of the daytime footage shot on the cell when it was WNW of Monticello, AR.

 

[Kevin Askew]

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=57321&id=1312929493&l=f89d7b2e58 Link to some video grabs Cross Co. 2 miles south of cherry Valley AR.

 

[Tony Cook]

De Witt, AR possible tornado

Probable tornado just NE of De Witt, AR, ~9:00 p.m. CDT from Hwy 1 looking ENE:

Full report on the chlog:

http://twistedtexas.blogspot.com/2010/05/chase-report-1-may-2010-east-arkansas.html

 

[Ben Holcomb]

The best I had was a rapidly rotating bowl lowering before dusk on the southeastern most cell near Monticello, AR. I posted a quick short video and my chase recap at http://www.benholcomb.com/Chase-Accounts/20100501