This chase log could probably be summed up in one word..."AAAAAHHHHHHH!". But where is the fun in that?
This day consisted of every single emotion you could probably think of. Our chase started late Friday afternoon when we left our town and headed to our initial target city of Birkley, AR. We arrived around 11pm and bunked down to for the night. Hopes were high that Saturday there would be a major outbreak with a high risk going to be issued. Sure enough when we woke up at 6am the SPC issued a high risk a little further south of us in MS into LA and AL.
Our target city shifted east into MS to Batesville, MS. It was at this time excitement was getting high! Then the issues began. Radar began to fail (would only update every 30 minutes at best) while the entire time the massive supercell in LA was forming. Thinking things couldn't get any worse, our cell card broke and our data abilities completely gone. All we had was GPS and a weather radio. It was at this point I believed our 1300 mile chase was going to bust and I honestly nearly broke into tears in defeat
While my dad was in the gas station getting some food, trying to figure out something to salvage the chase, a horrible message came across the weather radio. The NWS in Jackson, MS just issued a tornado EMERGENCY for Yazoo City, MS and even broke in personally (instead of the automated message). It was an eerie feeling! My heart sank at this point and I felt horrible for what was about to happen. I hoped everyone was going to listen to this warning but I hate a terrible feeling about it.
I looked quickly at where the cities in the path were, and decided to make a desperate move in an attempt to salvage the chase. We were headed for Durant, MS on I-55...the entire time the tornado emergency airing on weather radio. Halfway down to Durant, a new report flowed in saying Yazoo City was hit by a large wedge tornado with numerous injuries and severe damage. Again...I was terrified for the people in the path of the tornado
We arrived near Durant over 15 minutes before the tornado was supposed to reach the city and sat at a vantage point just off I-55 facing southwest. As we were watching Durant, MS was issued under a tornado warning with sirens blaring in the background. Just over the horizon above the trees, we could begin to see an "area of interest" with a massive amount of motion into what was still a large tornado on the ground. At this point, I made a stupid mistake that nearly got us injured or killed. The inflow into the large tornado fooled me into thinking storm motion was in that direction
The decision was then made to move to east of Durant and find another vantage point. As we were driving through the center of Durant we began to get pelted with tree debris like I never had before. Tree limbs were coming just like it was raining. I knew we were in some deep trouble and began to get scared for the first time in storm chasing. Last I had heard there was a large wedge tornado that may had done EF5 damage. Was this my last day on earth alive?
In the center of town, we turned left to go east and saw right in front of us rain curtains beginning to rotate. Thinking the tornado was off to our right I told my dad to floor it and get out of town NOW! Just as we came around the curve we could see the inflow winds picking up the rain on the road and sucking it into the tornado. We all at the same time screamed STOP! Coming to a screeching halt, we could see the edge of the tornado coming through the trees, 200ft to our right. Thanks to my dad's quick reaction, he threw it reverse. The whole time we could see the trees in front of us collapsing and breaking. We were so close that our truck was nearly rolled by the RFD into the tornado! And at our closest point, we were only 100ft or so away from this tornado!
Once reality set in that we nearly drove into a tornado, exhilaration and excitement set in. Did we just do what I thought we did? I made several attempts to call into 911 and let them know a tornado was STILL on the ground heading northeast but could not maintain a signal long enough. I felt completely and totally helpless, and again at this point I wanted to burst into tears in frustration. Our report not getting in COULD have someone killed further downstream. We made an attempt to catch back up with the storm but with the terrain and no data, we thought better of it and turned back around to Durant.
Sure enough, trees were uprooted and limbs snapped right where we had been only a few minutes before. We surveyed the area to make sure everyone was alright but to us it seemed like the damage was limited to trees with minor damage to homes (consistant with high end EF1 or low end EF2).
Go to this link to see the storm relative velocities from Jackson, MS radar: Reflectivity/Velocity images
So what did I learn from this chase? Make certain you know storm motion and direction! My mistake nearly injured/killed me, my dad and a couple friends of mine. I also learned just how many emotions you can feel during a chase. We all went from excitement, to complete and total despair and defeat, back to excitement and terror. I cant even imagine what the victims of Yazoo City, MS felt and the storm chasers who arrived right after it struck. Honestly...I'm kind of glad I WASN'T there, and I don't think I would have been ready for it mentally. I have CERT training...but some of the gruesome things I heard from chasers there it was horrible. We nearly drove to Yazoo City, MS and I wish I had to lend a hand but at the time we felt we'd get more in the way than anything. Just something to remember for next time really. It sounds bad...but something like this will happen again eventually
Just my thoughts on this chase. It was definitely an eye opener to me and glad that it wasn't our last
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Saturday, April 10, 2010
April 4th 2010 Chase Log
Our day (or rather I should say night) started near Carrollton, IL waiting on the long-track supercell coming in from Missouri. This storm had a history of producing tornadoes so we were waiting to catch it near Carrollton. We would have caught it further west, but we were held up by a ferry crossing on the river, which I was reluctant to do. I didn't feel like crossing, then having no way back across. We sat west of Carrollton for over an hour and a half, but it was worth it
As the storm started approaching the Illinois border, we repositioned further south since we were too far north of the long-track supercell. Our new target city was Jerseyville, IL. Did a quick fuel up and waited for a while yet again. For about 15 minutes just before the storm moved into the county Jerseyville is in, the tornado warning was downgraded to a severe thunderstorm warning. At this time, we started to head east out of Jerseyville to get a better look of the storm. I knew the storm was likely just cycling, and to NOT punch the core. Sure enough, when we were about 5 or 6 miles east of Jerseyville the tornado warning went out.
This is when things start going to hell. I could see where the supercell was and was paying attention to an area just north of Jerseyville where I thought I saw a funnel cloud. Sure enough on our video, there MAY have been a funnel. It was quite close to the ground! Mind you, it was very hard to tell since it was after dark at this time. At the same time of seeing this, our data capability dropped out completely. This is only 1 of 2 times i've run into such an issue and for over an hour we had no data AT ALL. Had we had data, I would have seen the amazing hook echo this storm was exhibiting! You can see the picture below...looks like Pacman heading towards me to eat me.
Here is where our first "Uh Oh" could have happened. We were headed east at this point, with absolutely no data and no idea what the storm looked like. I knew this thing was capable of producing a tornado, but we lost track of where it went. We took Rt. 111 north about 1 mile where you see Medora, IL above. We stayed there for about 15 or 20 minutes trying to figure out where the storm was, not realizing we put ourselves in the path of the very pronounced hook echo. Wes Carter, a fellow storm chaser at Stormtrack text messaged me at this point, asking me if everything was alright. From there on, him and Rocky Watson were our "nowcasters", guiding us where to go.
Continuing on east bound after we had "nowcasters" helping us, we arrived at Shipman, IL and headed north towards Carlinville, IL. At this point it was after 9pm. We were about 3 miles south of Carlinville, when the NWS issued new tornado warnings for the area. Nothing too interesting on video, although we did catch a wall cloud and possibly another funnel cloud. Again though, it was way too dark to figure out what was in front of us. No data STILL at this point, so we started heading into Carlinville, then eastward again towards I-55
When we got to I-55, Rocky called and instructed us a tornado warned storm was heading right for Litchfield, with Litchfield only being about 8 miles to our south. We arrived in town around 11:30pm and went just west of town to watch what was coming in. At this time, a brand new warning was issued, stating a possible tornado was located NEAR Litchfield heading east at 45mph. At the same time, our video caught another possible funnel cloud nearly on top of us. Soon after, we got the hell out of dodge and started heading eastbound at high speed, attempting to get out from the "bear's cage". While driving through Litchfield, we immediately could tell we were underneath the circulation as the wind shifted direction constantly and suddenly (kind of hard to tell on video). It was soon after this point when Rocky took another screen shot from GRLevel3 where the couplet had just passed over us. On our video, you can see the wall cloud right above us that we were fighting to get away from. This was a very precarious situation to be in! Had something touched down, we would have been VERY close to it, if not on top of us.
You can see in the picture above how close we were, even after the circulation went past us. Our car icon is where we were at at that exact time right behind the mesocyclone marker in Irving, IL. As we passed through Hillsboro, IL there were unconfirmed reports of a couple tornado touchdowns from a news station in the area. We didn't see anything...but I wouldn't be surprised if there was something there.
It was soon after this point we broke off our chase. One, the storms began to die down to below tornado warned status and it was 1am. We were exhausted at this point!
We learned a lot from this chase. Its hard to spot features at night and lightning is your best friend. For now on...we'll have our CB radio with us, in case we run into data holes. It has weather radio built in, so we can have a general idea where the storms are at. I think this coming winter we'll be investing in a cell amplifier too!
As the storm started approaching the Illinois border, we repositioned further south since we were too far north of the long-track supercell. Our new target city was Jerseyville, IL. Did a quick fuel up and waited for a while yet again. For about 15 minutes just before the storm moved into the county Jerseyville is in, the tornado warning was downgraded to a severe thunderstorm warning. At this time, we started to head east out of Jerseyville to get a better look of the storm. I knew the storm was likely just cycling, and to NOT punch the core. Sure enough, when we were about 5 or 6 miles east of Jerseyville the tornado warning went out.
This is when things start going to hell. I could see where the supercell was and was paying attention to an area just north of Jerseyville where I thought I saw a funnel cloud. Sure enough on our video, there MAY have been a funnel. It was quite close to the ground! Mind you, it was very hard to tell since it was after dark at this time. At the same time of seeing this, our data capability dropped out completely. This is only 1 of 2 times i've run into such an issue and for over an hour we had no data AT ALL. Had we had data, I would have seen the amazing hook echo this storm was exhibiting! You can see the picture below...looks like Pacman heading towards me to eat me.
Here is where our first "Uh Oh" could have happened. We were headed east at this point, with absolutely no data and no idea what the storm looked like. I knew this thing was capable of producing a tornado, but we lost track of where it went. We took Rt. 111 north about 1 mile where you see Medora, IL above. We stayed there for about 15 or 20 minutes trying to figure out where the storm was, not realizing we put ourselves in the path of the very pronounced hook echo. Wes Carter, a fellow storm chaser at Stormtrack text messaged me at this point, asking me if everything was alright. From there on, him and Rocky Watson were our "nowcasters", guiding us where to go.Continuing on east bound after we had "nowcasters" helping us, we arrived at Shipman, IL and headed north towards Carlinville, IL. At this point it was after 9pm. We were about 3 miles south of Carlinville, when the NWS issued new tornado warnings for the area. Nothing too interesting on video, although we did catch a wall cloud and possibly another funnel cloud. Again though, it was way too dark to figure out what was in front of us. No data STILL at this point, so we started heading into Carlinville, then eastward again towards I-55
When we got to I-55, Rocky called and instructed us a tornado warned storm was heading right for Litchfield, with Litchfield only being about 8 miles to our south. We arrived in town around 11:30pm and went just west of town to watch what was coming in. At this time, a brand new warning was issued, stating a possible tornado was located NEAR Litchfield heading east at 45mph. At the same time, our video caught another possible funnel cloud nearly on top of us. Soon after, we got the hell out of dodge and started heading eastbound at high speed, attempting to get out from the "bear's cage". While driving through Litchfield, we immediately could tell we were underneath the circulation as the wind shifted direction constantly and suddenly (kind of hard to tell on video). It was soon after this point when Rocky took another screen shot from GRLevel3 where the couplet had just passed over us. On our video, you can see the wall cloud right above us that we were fighting to get away from. This was a very precarious situation to be in! Had something touched down, we would have been VERY close to it, if not on top of us.
You can see in the picture above how close we were, even after the circulation went past us. Our car icon is where we were at at that exact time right behind the mesocyclone marker in Irving, IL. As we passed through Hillsboro, IL there were unconfirmed reports of a couple tornado touchdowns from a news station in the area. We didn't see anything...but I wouldn't be surprised if there was something there.It was soon after this point we broke off our chase. One, the storms began to die down to below tornado warned status and it was 1am. We were exhausted at this point!
We learned a lot from this chase. Its hard to spot features at night and lightning is your best friend. For now on...we'll have our CB radio with us, in case we run into data holes. It has weather radio built in, so we can have a general idea where the storms are at. I think this coming winter we'll be investing in a cell amplifier too!
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