5/2/08 DISC: AR/MO/TN/MS/LA/TX/KY/IL/IN/WI/IA/MI

[Heidi Farrar]

I thought I'd start off the DISC thread by posting a link to photos of the tornados that occurred yesterday in east Arkansas and the Missouri bootheel, as well as damage photos of Earle Arkansas, taken from an Air Evac helicopter. The link is to the blog of KAIT-8 Chief Meteorologist Ryan Vaughan; obviously, he had a very busy day yesterday. ... Looks like at least EF-4 damage in Earle.

http://ryansmorningblog.blogspot.com

(Ryan says it's fine to post the link here, by the way.)

 

[John Peters]

I've been constructing a wikipedia page for this outbreak. There were 81 reports from may 1-2, 7 deaths, extensive wind damage, and 2 tornadoes already rated EF-3 which probably warrants a page. If anyone wants to help construct this page, it would be much appreciated:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_1-3,_2008_Tornado_Outbreak#May_1_event

There are currently a few erroneous tornado listings in the "list of reported tornadoes" section. I will edit this out later.


Edit: seems like a page was already created. Nevermind.

 

[Brett Adair]

What a day. Ryan is a good buddy of mine and they were watching our feed from the wrapping up of the meso to the wedge tornado stage. We witnessed it hit two silos and completely obliterate them as well as damage some farm equipment. As soon as I get off of work, I plan on sending the video to Ryan and a few others. Best tornado of my career by far and I'm just thankful that those children riding around on those school buses in Earle were not hit by the tornado when it went through. The storm went from a needle to a wedge in less than a minute. Fascinating to watch.

Also, I talked to an intern at MEG and he told me that the survey was done quickly before the media had crews all over, so they plan to be back out. Ryan sent me some areial photos and I believe that there is a slight chance that a QRT could be called in and a low end F-4 rating could be given. Storm of the day I do believe though.