April 26-28, 2011 "Dixie Alley Tornado Outbreak"...Greatest in history?

[Jeff Wright]

A challenge yes--but with any luck you might have less congested roads than when you have a high risk out west.

 

[Wes Carter]

I can understand where you are coming from to a degree, but living near the Alabama line and chasing down there every chance I get and chasing in the Great Plains I'd choose to chase in the Plains every time if I could. True, there are chaser convergences at times in the Plains but outside of May 10 and 19 of last year which had a lot of mitigating circumstances that have been much discussed in other threads (high risk, near OKC, TWC broadcasting location of V2, Storm Chasers TV show, etc...) you can usually navigate the roads fairly easily.

In Alabama (and most of the area east of the Mississippi, no, make that east of I-35) you often have to fight traffic that isn't chasing. On many of our roads, one car slowing down to 30mph on a two lane road because of rain or whatever can effectively kill a chase because it might be a while before you can safely pass. Couple that with the normally greater-than-30mph storm motions and it pretty much sucks sometimes.

That being said, it is not impossible. You are right, there are some areas you can get a great view. I like chasing west of Huntsville along route 72. It's pretty flat and you can usually make good time. However, even there you are boxed in north/south by the Tennessee River and hills along the Tennessee line. The difference is in the Southeast you usually have to position yourself in front of the storm and hope to get a good view as it goes by. Out in the Plains you can follow the same storm for sometimes 100 miles which greatly increases your odds for being on that storm when it produces.

And I'm not sure what it was doing there, but I saw a DOW truck in Huntsville 2 years ago. I don't know if they were studying storms there, if it belonged to UA or some university in Alabama, if it belonged to Baron Services, or if they build them there. It was white and looked brand new (still glossy). It was going the opposite direction as me on I-565 near the airport so I could not get a look to see what the writing said, if there was any.

 

[Randy Bowers]

And I'm not sure what it was doing there, but I saw a DOW truck in Huntsville 2 years ago. I don't know if they were studying storms there, if it belonged to UA or some university in Alabama, if it belonged to Baron Services, or if they build them there. It was white and looked brand new (still glossy). It was going the opposite direction as me on I-565 near the airport so I could not get a look to see what the writing said, if there was any.

It belongs to UAH.

http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/mips/