SW Missouri Chase
Hello all,
Well, this after noon around 6pm Buddy noticed some rotation on radar, so we went outside to see if we could see anything... boy did we ever... There was a very large Mesocyclone just to our nw about a mile.. so out the door we went... we went to the intersection of 71 and HH hwy.. at this time we noticed a very well defined wallcloud with lowering to our north... we then went east on HH then north on CR120 to Gum Rd.... at this location the wallcloud was right in front of us about 1/4 mile ... there was huge amounts of rotation and lowering .... it was changing shape faster than you can say howdy... the updraft was awesome!!! then boom out of nowhere, a funnel dropped down, the rotation was awesome viewing it from this close.... it was down for aprox 30 sec and went back up... but the rotation within the wallcloud continued... we then went east on Gum Rd to hwy 37 to observe the wallcloud again... At this point I got some more shots of it but the rain was starting to wrap the wallcloud.... We then continued East on Fir Rd (Gum Rd changes to Fir Rd at hwy 37) for about 4 miles and stopped again to observe... the wallcloud at this time was barely visible because of the rain so we decided to abandon this storm....
Because I really didn't want to core punch this storm with a history of tornadic conditions, we continued east on Fir to hwy 97 then went south to I-44. We then went West on I-44 to head home which we ended up running into heavy rain.... by the time we got to CR100 the rain had let up and we noticed another cell with a wallcloud to our south so we pulled on the exit at CR100 and stopped to see if there was rotation... it did have some so we decided to chase this one.... Chase #2 ... we headed East on I-44 to catch this one and pulled off at exit 29. We found us a good viewpoint of this wallcloud with some rotation at a station there. We watched this one for about 15 min and then proceeded to go east on the outer rd of I-44 to get a better view as it was moving pretty good... I pulled out of the station and didn't notice a BIG pothole in the road and hit it. Well, hitting this pothole, which was full of water, caused my drive belt to pop off from the water splashing on it... gggrrrrr!!! (notorious with Dodge mini-vans) ... here is the kicker, I didn't have my tools with me..LOL So, here we are, stuck on the side of the road, another storm rolling in, one leaving us and no tools or nothin!! Buddy walk back to the station to see if they had any tools and they didn't so I called Dee (my wife) to bring me some tools... (thank god for cell phones..lol) .. Well, Dee was 35 miles away and this other storm was getting pretty close and it was starting to sprinkle so I thought what the hell, I'll just try to put it on by hand... If ya know anything about serpentine belts, they have a tensioner that has to by pryed or rotated to allow the belt to go on. I decided to try to push down (actually bouncing with my weight) on the tensioner to see if I could move it... I bounced a few times and it moved a little.. I thought, hmmm!! I bounced more and kept pressure on it so it wouldn't come back up, it moved more, I finally bounced and moved it enought to get the belt on without tools.. hehe ... by this time the storm to our east was well out of chasing range and the one heading for us disapated so we headed home....
Needless to say, I will NOW have tools in my van at ALL TIMES.. lol
SIDE NOTE: There was a report of a tornado on the ground by the sheriff dept 5 miles north of Joplin Mo.... After we got back, we check the radial volocity north of Joplin and didn't see any rotation where he was at..hmmm?? ... but if you look where we was at, about 20 miles ENE of Joplin, just east of Carthage Mo, there is definate rotation....
NWS Report
I will post some pics on my website when pics are developed..
Dave
EDIT: As per request, I am putting up a link of our exact location and radar images from this chase
Our Location:
http://www.viperschase.com
Radar from that time:
http://www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/radar/disp...me=0&duration=1
Look east of Joplin at 23:18 UTC to 23:47 UTC I know it's not alot of rotation on radar but it looked like alot on the ground, enough to form a brief funnel... it actually looks stronger than the rotation west of Jasper that the sheriff dept reported one on the ground with...
Dave
, and for humor's sake I took a photos of that as well. Then we continued on our way south, and I continued to watch what I could see of the storm in my rear view. 
