5/7/09 Report: MO

[Brian Stertz]

5/7/09 REPORTS: MO

Back from a somewhat local chase that started with a small LP type storm that seemed to slowly gain strength as it moved pretty much down Hwy 36. Near Osborn MO, the supercell certainly changed character and the base finally began to lower. It was a pretty but small supercell. The cap seemed to really give this supercell (#1) trouble until it crossed I-35. At about this time, I heard the T warning for a tornado nw of Chillicothe. I decided to go for the gusto but busted. The supercell moved away and weakened some by the time I got to it plus it was getting dark. The T warning was dropped and by this time supercell #1 exploded. I plotted an intercept at Carrollton. The severe t-storm warning started out with mentioning quarter hail...then ping pong ball...then tennis ball....and finally baseball hail About this time I was stuck behind some slow moving semis on Hwy 65 north of town. I was fearing the worst so I ducked in a car wash...the first safe spot on north side of town. It looked like the real bad part of the hailcore passed just west and south of Carrollton and spared that town. Have something going on with my car I have to get checked out tomorrow...fear it may be something major. No tornado and avoided the big hailbombs so not much to report beyond some pretty good structure observed even if it was fairly high based. Pics are looking east near Osborn MO (DeKalb Co.)

Car update: my ac compressor failed so that was my ultimate car issue last night. Thankfully not the motor or transmission. Whew.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Chased the early tornado warned one from north of Stanberry MO, then east over to Albany right ahead of it. Pretty cold air out ahead of the base at that point, something I didn't figure it would ever gain control over. Then went south out of Albany. Wound up staying with it through Civil Bend and down to Gallatin, where it finally became tornado warned. For the last 30-60 minutes before it got to Gallatin it was really starting to manhandle that cold air and get more of a surface based bottom even on the east/northeast side. The RFD became more and more energetic. I thought it had a chance as areas were cutting in and trying to pinwheel around on the se side of the curling base. The normal wrapped area one would expect a tornado to form looked like a lost cause, it was more linear and cold. Sometimes though you can get a sharp cut to form right in the middle of the structure and have that take over. That kept looking like it wanted to do that, often right on me and my only road choices. Speaking of those, nice reminder of why I hate nw MO. Surely melted some breaks today. If you stopped for anything you'd be rapidly losing ground on things. No stops and you'd just be able to maintain your position, never really gaining much.

By Gallatin I hit a bigger highway again finally but also hit traffic, just as the core was moving into town. Jumped south there and let it go. It looked best just before it got there and didn't look too terrific after it was tor warned there that I could see.

Dropped south of Kingston and watched that lp'ish deal approach. It looked really amazing at one point as the red sun set right below it and this lowering it had....BUT....it's in nw MO, like there's a single damn place to shoot it/see it besides a glimpse between trees. Kept trying further south for the next gravel option and it sucked. Found a decent spot, but of course by then the sun had set. Shot some stills there trying to get twilight CGs but no, storm wasn't having anything to do with CGs. Soon a decent plume went up right west of the main one, leaning right over me. That got me back in the car not wanting to be the first cg(cm'ike). Then that got a really nice curling rfd cut. The cut started to really chop in JUST nw of me. Did some real wide stills there as it got dark wondering what exactly that cut was up to, since often you see it cutting around that much a vortex is about certain to form at the apex...which was to move right overhead any second. Would have made a sweet ultrawide still there had it done it. That seemed to immediately preceed the beefing up of that storm at dark.

Drove home.....not a hell of a lot to show on yet another chase.

 

[Randall Cooper]

Full summary of my chase today at http://www.ichasewhatyouhidefrom.com/index.php?option=com_idoblog&view=idoblog&Itemid=57

 

[Jeff Duda]

As I mentioned in the "NOW" post, I chased this one as far south as the IA/MO border along I-35. I gave up on it at about 5:30 PM when, while watching it, I saw nothing but one long extended shelf ahead of it and nothing but outflow. I figured the forcing was from the OFB that was to the north still, so I didn't think there would be any reason to expect that the storms would strengthen or begin to rotate suddenly as they pressed south. I didn't have radar with me, but it looked like it was lining out, so I left and headed home.

 

[John Farley]

I got on a decent storm just south and southwest of Milan, MO, but missed the tornado from the next storm west (or perhaps its right split) by about 30 miles.

Full report and more pictures at:

http://www.johnefarley.com/chase50709.htm

 

[Paul Hadfield]

I'm surprised that there aren't more reports for C IL being as we had a very active day. As for me, I was fortunate to witness three photogenic storms in as many counties.

Storm I as it entered SW Logan county developed a large blocky lowering with considerable motion. Though I was able to document this feature from the beginning, I couldn't really see what was going on underneath from my vantage point. It was still many miles away and this was with the 300mm from atop my truck. Once I was able to get beyond the trees, the core separated me from it to the SW.

.50 hail from upon passage as shot with the 58mm macro attachment.

Storm II was a cell bearing similar structure with a deep hail core to the S of Taylorville. I headed S only to be slowed by a semi so I was never able to fully get where I wanted though I did get into some .50 to .70 hail as the cell was dying.

Numerous rainbow opportunites

Storm III was a lone sup that developed over Springfield and drifted E. Initially I didn't think it would do anything but upon arriving at Shelby county, it became quite organized. The lowering you see sheared off and I thought that was it so I decided to move closer for lightning opportunity.

Nearer to the updraft base and over the town of Assumption, a new lowering developed as the core was reportedly producing 2" hail over Moweaqua. This would go on to the be highlight of the day. I know I have exceed the image limit by one and apologize but it is worth noting that I will have available some time lapse clips of this and some of the other structures in coming days.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

http://www.extremeinstability.com


Too lazy to copy and paste it over here.

 

[George Grant]

Central Missouri

Started out heading south on US75 towards NE KS. Stopped by Plattsmouth to watch a high-based thundershower head by to the E. Made it down to Nebraska City and headed over the river and stopped at the I29 truck stop to get data. Yeah, thirty minutes from home and my Alltel data card is already on the blink. I decided to head back across the Missouri and go south into Kansas on US75.

Got to Hiawatha as a large cell moved across town. Met up with Chris Rice, Randall Cooper, and Stephen Locke when I pulled into a closed-up convenience store. This cell died a quick death as it floated east of town.

We sat and waited and waited and called some other chasers to chat. We watched higher dews nose towards NE KS, but this stuff wasn't in place and was taking its time. Finally, a large, barrel-shaped storm went up to our northeast with another one to the north. We sat and watched this larger storm move off to the southeast. All decided this thing was much too high-based to do anything. I think it was Chris who finally said, "If we're gonna go, we might as well chase this one." My Alltel signal is very intermittent at this point.

East on US36 into St. Joe. Stopped for gas as Stephen was leaving me behind. The girl at the counter told me of a tornado warning ENE of there. News to me since I had absolutely no signal now.

Back on 36 I finally called Alltel. Got hold of Justin who checked to see how hard I was hitting the Sprint towers around there. I told him that wasn't the problem since I was amping this thing with one of Gordon's kits. I'm hammering five bars almost the entire time. "Well, you guys know more about that than I do." Haha. Is that reassuring? We opened a settings window where I had the wrong numbers in two of the three fields. Doh! It was a surprise I was even connecting at all. This worked perfectly the rest of the way.

By this time it was dusk and I raced east to Cameron (we had all decided earlier). I went south on US69. Was there some stinking reason I thought this old, dilapidated highway was better than I35? Turned east on 116 after I made it through bug valley US69. Was watching scud and rain curtains in the lighning flashes as I made my way to Polo and south from there on SR13. Stopped near a cemetery and viewed sky. The moon was up about thirty or forty degrees. It was brilliant as it reflected off the big tower. A couple of trailing mini-towers temporarily blocked the moonlight and they turned a creepy-looking dark, brownish grey as they were silhouetted by the moon behind them. My still and vid cams are not good in low light, so no pics. But all-in-all, the scenery at the end made it a worthwhile trip.

Good meeting everyone in Hiawatha.

Geo

 

[John Farley]

For anyone interested, I have added a sequence of radar images to my chase report, which is located at:

http://www.johnefarley.com/chase50709.htm

Lesson learned: Pay attention to what the next storm down the line is doing.

 

[Chad Cowan]

We watched what would eventually become this gorgeous supercell struggle to produce a rain shower for about three hours in extreme northeast KS. The moisture finally arrived and this thing took off. It cycled a couple of times and produced some decent wall clouds after dark. We stopped following it after 6 hours and watched from a distance as the extremely electric, low-topped storm drifted away under a full moon. As you can see from the second photo, it was quite a sight! Note the wall cloud in the lower right just above the copyright mark. There was baseball sized hail reported around this time which shows how incredibly powerful this updraft was given its relatively limited height.

More photos and a time lapse HERE

 

[Paul Hadfield]

Update: Assemble a five minute photo/video montage of the day which includes several clips as promised in my previous report. Decided to get creative since it has been awhile and seemed fitting for what comes with the third storm. As per the music, it is a paid license through the service listed at the end. Very affordable and worth checking out if you want to do what is both right and legal.

http://vimeo.com/4588077

(Edit: at the time of this post, Vimeo was having issues so if you get an error, just try later.)