May 1st 2010 High Risk chase

Although this day did not turn out as major as originally expected, we still had a phenomenal day! I was first woken up at 6am by my dad who said there was a moderate risk out to our south. After looking at things, I wasn't too hot to trot down there and went back to sleep for a little over an hour and a half. About 830am my dad busts in again and said there was an upgrade to high risk. Looking at things again, I then changed my mind and we packed up and took off about 9am.

Our original target city was Jonesboro, AR although I did have some worries that wouldn't be far enough. We neared Arkansas though the Missouri bootheel and sure enough I decided to move my target city to Brinkley, AR in favor of higher shear, instability, etc. Our arrival time was around 4pm and we noticed across the street some other chasers also waiting on initiation. After my dad went over there to talk to them, it wound up being Roger Hill's tour group! Surely enough, I had picked the right spot.

Soon after, the initiation began in southern AR into northern LA. After seeing where they were tracking, we moved to Carlisle, AR to sit and wait for the storms to come in. We fueled up real quick and started to eat at Sonic. Because our vehicle is so easy to pick out, we had numerous people including police coming to talk to us. Halfway through my meal a tornado warning was issued for Carlisle, AR. We went to the edge of town to see if we could find a vantage point. For a time, we were very worried Carlisle would take a direct hit from a tornado if it was on the ground and after meeting so many very kind people, I had my fingers crossed it would miss the town.

We continued eastward towards Hazen, AR in an attempt to avoid the rain and to have better visibility of any tornado if there was one. There was a vantage point about a mile south of Hazen we wound up sitting at and watching the storm. All the while, we were streaming live on Severe studios and anyone who was watching the stream was in for a treat. A huge wall cloud came into view, heading right for the small town of Hazen. It was around this time I pointed toward an area where I saw a low contrast cone tornado on the ground! With it being low contrast, I never reported a tornado with the uncertainty (probably my mistake) but another storm chaser nearby reported the tornado on the ground where I had seen it. Soon after numerous funnel clouds started forming all along the wall cloud which included less than half mile from us. This storm seemed to get ready to produce something big!

For whatever reason, the storm never produced a large tornado as what was expected on this day. Still though...we had already bagged one tornado but it was dark at this time. We decided to still follow this storm and attempt to keep up with it. Had to do some gravel road chasing even with the amount of rain that had fallen in the area. The still tornadic storm started coming back into view when we were passing through Brinkley where we began to move northeast closer to the storm.

At this time, we clearly noted a wall cloud but rotation wasn't easy to see due to it being dark. From just off to our left to just off to our right while driving northeast, we could see features where there may have been several funnel clouds. As we neared Hilleman, AR my dad pointed just off to the right and said there was a tornado on the ground. At the same time, storm chasers closer to the storm reported a tornado on the ground with power flashes! We just bagged tornado #2 for the chase!

Just north of Penrose, AR there was major damage done to a home with police blocking the road. I offered my CERT training to them but they seemed to not know what to do at the time. There were two cars at the home and a dog outside barking. A few sheriff officer's and a couple firefighters braved electrocution from fallen power lines to go for the house and search for anyone at home who may be trapped. They found another dog that was buried under some more debris that they rescued but no one at home could be found. The bed sheets had been pulled back like someone was just at the home. At this time, we heard a cracking noise and a tree behind the home started to fall on the house. I've never seen so many people pile out of a home before in my life!

It was then at this time I noticed a destroyed police car on the side of the road. All the windows were blown out and the one side was banged up severely. The deputy who was in the squad car at the time drove into the tornado on accident! He wound up being hit by the roof off the home. He was shook up but other than that was ok.

The people who lived at the house must had been found after asking what happened to the squad car, as I overheard another cop say the people at the house were ok. Whew!

Overall, a very successful chase. We had absolutely NO equipment issues and we surprisingly kept up with the tornadic storms on a crappy road network and low visibility at times. And on top of that, we bagged 2 tornadoes and no injured. It was unfortunate to see the one home destroyed though. I'm ready for the rest of the season to come along now! Its been a great season so far and I hope to reach my goal of 5 tornadoes before storm season ends