Scott Sims
EF1
From the view of a chaser that did try on 5-1-2010, Skip is pretty much right about the storm structure and disappointment, even with 42 tornado reports. The early tornadoes(first 6 or 7 around 1-3pm) were along and East of the Mississippi in TN and MS, where chasing is impossible already, and with the flooding that was occurring in N. AR and TN that day, even some of the paved good highways were going to be questionable. This was all from the morning convection anyhow, so I doubted anyone that wasn't backyard spot chasing had targeted this mess.
So, that forced us all to pretty much have to try and stay south of I-40 out of the floodwaters. Most of us sat in Stuttgart or down towards Pine Bluff all day sweating our arses off (about 88F/73Td), expecting initiation by mid afternoon. The PDS tornado watch came pretty early, but still we sat. Finally, with daylight fading, a whole family of supercells(about a dozen) sprouted, but mostly in the crappy hills south-west of the chaseable floodplain, or in the Little Rock metro traffic. Some rushed down into the hills to get on the cell with tornado reports south of Pine Bluff before it got dark. I chose to wait for the next one up the line to cross the AR river into the floodplain and intercepted it near Sherrill and followed it up toward Brinkley, where I decided to call it due to darkness, storm speed and the fact that I made it to I-40 and it could take me to my bed in just 4 hours. There were a lot of tornadoes in the flooded-floodplain of NE AR (I even had to dodge a couple cells while on I-55 on the way home), but they were after dark.
Here is the video of the cell near Sherrill, this was as good as it got for me that day, and not much better or worse than most.
Watch video >
There are worse busts for me in general, with 10%+ and even hatched tornado areas indicated, but they weren't high risk days.
Anytime I have targeted the NEMOIA triangle(The area around St Joseph, MO comprising NE MO IA), I bust. I have sat in Rulo, NE, Nebraska City, NE and Beatrice, NE under sunny skies all day several times (5-21-05, 5-24-08, 4-05-10 and 4-06-10 started here and ended up in Cedar Rapids IA with a wall cloud at best). 4-05-10 did have a couple nice cells after dark when the cap finally broke near Hiawatha. I know some folks got some good lightening and structure pics from that.
So, that forced us all to pretty much have to try and stay south of I-40 out of the floodwaters. Most of us sat in Stuttgart or down towards Pine Bluff all day sweating our arses off (about 88F/73Td), expecting initiation by mid afternoon. The PDS tornado watch came pretty early, but still we sat. Finally, with daylight fading, a whole family of supercells(about a dozen) sprouted, but mostly in the crappy hills south-west of the chaseable floodplain, or in the Little Rock metro traffic. Some rushed down into the hills to get on the cell with tornado reports south of Pine Bluff before it got dark. I chose to wait for the next one up the line to cross the AR river into the floodplain and intercepted it near Sherrill and followed it up toward Brinkley, where I decided to call it due to darkness, storm speed and the fact that I made it to I-40 and it could take me to my bed in just 4 hours. There were a lot of tornadoes in the flooded-floodplain of NE AR (I even had to dodge a couple cells while on I-55 on the way home), but they were after dark.
Here is the video of the cell near Sherrill, this was as good as it got for me that day, and not much better or worse than most.
Watch video >
There are worse busts for me in general, with 10%+ and even hatched tornado areas indicated, but they weren't high risk days.
Anytime I have targeted the NEMOIA triangle(The area around St Joseph, MO comprising NE MO IA), I bust. I have sat in Rulo, NE, Nebraska City, NE and Beatrice, NE under sunny skies all day several times (5-21-05, 5-24-08, 4-05-10 and 4-06-10 started here and ended up in Cedar Rapids IA with a wall cloud at best). 4-05-10 did have a couple nice cells after dark when the cap finally broke near Hiawatha. I know some folks got some good lightening and structure pics from that.
