Chase Case #12

[James McCormick]

I'm still trying to get as far east as fast as I can, so I'm racing (at appropriate speeds) through St. Louis. I am able to get O'Fallon, Illinois by 21 Z or so, but am continuing to drive as I receive this data, hoping to get a bit farther east!

 

[Brian Stertz]

What did the cap not break and we all busted ??!! Just wondering why this severe wx event is dragging on like the 1988 chase season...ready for action here in Litchfield IL.

 

[Alex Lamers]

Well sorry guys...I would've got to this sooner but I was workin up some special forecasting software.

The date was April 24 2002 and there was an F4 tornado in SE MO. You can look up the info, but I'm outta time here so if not much is posted about the event by then...then I will add some info.

...Alex Lamers...

 

[David Wolfson]

Haukay! Cyclic tornadic cell tracked about 290 from Van Buren at 2123 to Dudley at 2235. Shane, Kurt, Andrea, and I are eating steak (or fish) in Poplar Bluff!
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/020424_rpts.html
A few others no doubt scored, too!

 

[John Farley]

Got in on this late, but I am either sitting tight at home in Edwardsville, IL, or perhaps heading a little east or southeast to be east of where the storms form as the cap breaks. I think either right here or somewhere to the southeast along the warm front could be the place to be.

EDIT - oops, read through it too fast and missed the post showing the solution. I would have missed it, though, because of my avoidance of SE MO which is lousy chase terrrain until you get to the river bottom land in the Bootheel. Heck, in that terrain, I probably would have missed it even if I had managed to position myself within 5 miles of it.

 

[Andy Wehrle]

Wow, I was actually pretty close! I am curious, for those that targeted the same area but didn't post their reasoning, what led you to that target? Here's what I noticed about the scenario that guided me to that area:

What appeared to be an upper-level trof over KS at 12Z made me initially think wrn MO, but I should've considered that trof would move quite a bit between 12Z and the event. I actually set up a little further east than I originally would have because of the cloud cover advecting into wrn MO.

Based on 1630Z data I blasted south/east to stay ahead of the trof/front, targeting the area of Texas County, MO planning to be able to move in any direction necessary from there.

Here's what I liked about SE MO:

>backing surface winds
>low LCLs (small t/td spread)
>dynamite helicity per 12Z data
>presence of the warm front

Are these the same things others picked up on, or were there others?

In practice, I probably still would have missed the storm that day anyway being still a little behind the action and with the terrain as John said.

 

[Andrea Griffa]

Originally posted by David Wolfson
Haukay! Cyclic tornadic cell tracked about 290 from Van Buren at 2123 to Dudley at 2235. Shane, Kurt, Andrea, and I are eating steak (or fish) in Poplar Bluff!
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/020424_rpts.html
A few others no doubt scored, too!

It's always a pleasure eating steak after a succesful chase...Better after an F4 :wink:

 

[Andrea Griffa]

Originally posted by Andy Wehrle
Wow, I was actually pretty close! I am curious, for those that targeted the same area but didn't post their reasoning, what led you to that target? Here's what I noticed about the scenario that guided me to that area:

What appeared to be an upper-level trof over KS at 12Z made me initially think wrn MO, but I should've considered that trof would move quite a bit between 12Z and the event. I actually set up a little further east than I originally would have because of the cloud cover advecting into wrn MO.

Based on 1630Z data I blasted south/east to stay ahead of the trof/front, targeting the area of Texas County, MO planning to be able to move in any direction necessary from there.

Here's what I liked about SE MO:

>backing surface winds
>low LCLs (small t/td spread)
>dynamite helicity per 12Z data
>presence of the warm front

Are these the same things others picked up on, or were there others?

In practice, I probably still would have missed the storm that day anyway being still a little behind the action and with the terrain as John said.

First of all I really didn't like that warm front at 12Z from the radar so I headed toward S. Luois MO, an intermediate city. Then after have seen the outflow boundary from the next radar images, the best thing to do was to go southward as soon as possible, where there were backing surface winds plus low lcls, waiting for breaking the cap: and that was a probable thing, seen the good moisture and the quite hight surface temperature.

 

[Brian Stertz]

No steak for this chaser...got trashed by outflow dominated t-warned HP with some big hail near Gillespie IL...but no tornadoes...ah yes the infamous Van Buren/Poplar Bluff event. I saw the damage path from that one...it was real bad from Ellsinore to the area north of Poplar Bluff near Hendrickson..legit F4 damage.

 

[Andrea Griffa]

Originally posted by Brian Stertz
No steak for this chaser...got trashed by outflow dominated t-warned HP with some big hail near Gillespie IL...but no tornadoes...ah yes the infamous Van Buren/Poplar Bluff event. I saw the damage path from that one...it was real bad from Ellsinore to the area north of Poplar Bluff near Hendrickson..legit F4 damage.

Any pics of the monster?

 

[Brian Stertz]

No pics to share...just another HP bust chase...pretty typical for this area around St.Louis where I grew up and my chase "career" first started.

 

[David Wolfson]

I found this link: http://www.crh.noaa.gov/pah/storm/butler/
It has one picture of the tornado itself: http://www.crh.noaa.gov/pah/storm/butler/t1.jpg

 

[Joel Wright]

No tornado for me either. Unfortunately I positioned myself badly and got ran over with damaging hail just south of Taylorville IL. Time to call the insurance adjuster.

 

[Shane Adams]

I can't really explain why I picked NE AR eventually....I just liked the surface map in that area. I'm still very much a novice with pattern recognition, but I saw something in that area that looked good to me. Also, with the cold front moving as rapidly as it was, I figured a late day target well ahead of it would be wiser.