4/24/10 Storm Chase Recap...

Before I go into the recap, I would really like to phrase the SPC and the NWS on an EXCELLENT job in yesterday's historic tornado outbreak! Without a doubt they saved many lives! They don't have an easy job at all and just like life in general they sometimes take criticism they deserve/they don't deserve... However, I would like to personally thank them for a great job yesterday! Hopefully they know their efforts don't go unrecognized... I also would like to thank Tim Wallace, Michael Carter, Jeff Perry, Ashley Sedorovich, and Michael Haynes for a great storm chase... Everyone worked well together even when things got a little crazy! I would also like to thank Justyn Jackson and Dr. Mike Brown for all the radar help they gave us... I don't think people realize all the effort and support it takes to have a successful storm chase so again I want to thank everyone involved...

We started the High Risk 30% hatched tornado day in Greenville, MS and got up around 5:30am after a few hours sleep... Immediately we noticed storms moving towards the river so we decided to head a little east towards Leland, MS... Even though it felt eerie outside with the amount of moisture in the air the storms just didn't look right to me... There was a lot of CIN in the area and after looking at visible satellite imagery around 7:30am we decide to head south towards clear skies... When we got to Hollandale, MS the skies were mostly clear, the sun was out, and I knew we were in the right spot!

We headed into the town and found a ziptrip to hang out at... They had an excellent breakfast selection and I would really like to thank the people working there for being so kind to us! At 8:30am my good friend Michael Haynes met up with us... Michael works for WABG-TV in Greenville, MS and has gone on several storm chases with me including Hurricane Ike! We kept watching storms to our west approach from Louisiana and noticed the CIN had started to erode fairly quickly... Also, CAPE jumped in the 2500 J/kg + range... The storms in Louisiana never really looked so great and we kept getting info that increased shower activity to our east would fire up and become the main show... So we decided to venture a little NE just to reevaluate the situation...

We got to Indianola, MS around 10:30am... We looked at some more data and decided that the storms in Louisiana were the main show (shower activity to the east was dying out quickly) and those storms in LA should really explode as they move away from the CIN and head into CAPE approaching 2500 j/kg +... Typically I would play closer to the better dynamics and the triple point, but this was a unique situation... Chasing in the Deep South is different than the Great Plains and I felt like being in the best thermodynamic environment was the right call with the amount of forcing/dynamics (more than sufficient) we already had in place... It would have really sucked to have made the correct forecast initially, only to change our minds and move the wrong way... Even though that unfortunately happens a lot in storm chasing... This time we stuck to our guns and decided we were going to head back south towards Yazoo City, MS...

Once we got to Yazoo City, we decided we needed to try to head a little more south... This is where things got crazy... We lost our internet service and our phone service was spotty at best... Unfortunately as we headed south of Yazoo City we were surrounded by trees on both sides as we made our way down highway 3... This is the tough/frustrating part about chasing in the south... In hind sight I really wish we would have stayed on Highway 61 because I know the viewing is very good out there... Who knew there was Delta National Forest/Panther Swamp National Wildlife Refuge to the west as it was the first time I have been on highway 3... Next time I'll know I guess... By the way the Mississippi Delta is some of the better chase country you will find in the US... It's not quite as good as a lot of the Great Plains but it's still excellent... We just got a little unlucky with our road selection plus Yazoo City pretty much marks the end of the Delta...

Images curtesy by Dr. Mike Brown, Mississippi State University...

Thankfully a few phone calls were able to get through from Justyn and Mike... But still there was a LOT of confusion... We went too far south and quickly realized we had to turn around and head back quickly towards Yazoo City... We had got reports of a large wedge tornado on the ground and we knew this was not a storm to mess with... The gate to gate shear was off the charts and we knew this was a monster, even with the limited info/data we could get... I'm a firm believer that everything happens for a reason which I think will show as I get into the next part of the story... Honestly it could have been bad...

Images courtesy of Jared Allen, NWS Jackson, MS...

As I was flying up highway 3 trying to get back into position, we noticed a large black mass directly in front of us... That was the mile wide + monster tornado, but to be honest, I had no idea that was the tornado! This is where everything happens for a reason comes into play... If we would have been a minute faster, is there any guarantee I wouldn't have drove straight into it, thinking it was just heavy rain associated with the RFD wrapping around the storm??? I've seen that black mass/cloud MANY TIMES in the Plains/South and it was just extremely heavy rain... I would like to think I would have noticed in time but honestly again I didn't know it was the monster tornado until we ran up on the damage about 30-60 secs later... That's a scary feeling when you think about it! And not to sound arrogant but I probably have more chasing experience in Mississippi than 99% of the chasers out there... Still I almost made a mistake that could have potentially cost us our lives... Thankfully God was looking out for us but still that's an uneasy feeling...

In the future I will never look at a black mass of clouds the same, I promise you that... Especially in the south when a lot of supercells are HP... Again I have chased all over Mississippi for over 9 years now, with more experience in this state than 99% of the chaser out there, and still to be honest I almost made a catastrophic mistake because of the lack of visibility! That's why you have to be SO CAREFUL if you chase through the Deep South! I know most probably would have left this part of the story out, but I always want to be honest so people can realistically see how dangerous chasing can be even if you are an experience chaser with over 9 years experience... Things happen, but the key is to learn from them so it doesn't happen twice!

As we hit the damage path we saw Jeff Piotrowski and Terry Schenk already trying to tie a tow line to the limbs of trees, so we could move enough branches out of the way to be able to continue chasing... Here is some video of that if you would like to see it! About half way in you will see all of us trying to pull tress and other debris out of the road... Later in the day we ran into them again and they told us we missed this black mass by about 30-60 secs... They described it as a black fog going across the road directly in front of them... They said is was spinning rapidly but like us they couldn't see a condensation funnel...

The damage was really bad... Huge tress snapped clean in half, power poles snapped clean in half, and even some trees were debarked to a point... I always try to edge on the side of caution when assessing damage ratings, but I thought it was probably EF-3 even though I told most people it was at least an EF-2 just to be on the safe side... The debarked trees makes me think it may have reached an EF-4 rating but I'll wait on the storm survey for that... Again I would guess around a high end EF-3... I would also like to say that if we would have seen any people in trouble or houses destroyed I would have IMMEDIATELY stopped and helped... I saw some sheds destroyed and some houses slightly damage but people were outside and everyone was ok... The damage path was at least a mile long if not closer to two because of the way the road snaked around... It wasn't a straight flat road at all... I've seen much worse damage before in hurricanes but as far as tornado chasing is concerned this is the worst damage I have seen with my own eyes right as the event occurred... Of course I've seen towns that have been unfortunately wiped of the map by a F5/EF-5 later on, but this again was the worst tornado damage I have seen "live"...

When we finally made it through the damage path I realized that I had a tire going flat quickly... I guess I ran over something to put a hole in it... At this point we made it to a small gas station basically in the middle of nowhere... They didn't have fix-a-flat and to make things worse I couldn't find the key to get my tire off... Nissan locks your tires by the way... Anyhow I thought we were stuck when a miracle happened... Remember we are in the middle of nowhere, when we noticed a older man that was fixing tires on the side of the gas station... I told him what happened and he said he would help! He found the hole, plugged it, filled it back up with air in about 5 minutes... I mean how lucky this that! I gave the guy $20 and we were back on the road... A special thanks goes out to that very kind man! He didn't have to help at all if didn't want too!

At this point we weren't going to catch the Yazoo tornado but we noticed more storms were firing south and west on a flanking line just east of the boundary... We decided to head back up towards Greenwood on Highway 49E and then cut back towards Starkville on highway 82 west... On the way I did two phone interviews for WAPT in Jackson, MS and WCBI in Columbus, MS... A couple of my friends/former students work there so I had no problem with helping them out! We made great time across 82 west and made it back to Starkville around 3:15pm... We just missed the first tornado that went west of Starkville which was the same storm that hit Yazoo... I'll wait for the storm survey to confirm this but that monster was a long tracked tornado from around Tallulah, LA to French Camp, MS... That's about 150 miles long, which would ranked right up there with some of the longest tornado tracks of all time! We'll see again if it had any damage breaks along the way...

The next supercell missed Starkville to the south... It had a nice wall cloud on it as we follow it to the intersection of alt 45 and highway 82... As I said earlier, supercell after supercell would fire off the flanking line of the previous storm... There was plenty of shear to support tornadoes, but by this time the CAPE had gone down a lot and there just wasn't enough energy to support updrafts capable of producing tornadoes, at least around the Oktibbeha, Winston, and Noxubee counties... We saw several beautiful supercells as we made our way down 45 south to Macon, MS, but we never saw any tornadoes... We could of continued into Alabama (Michael Haynes did and saw another nice supercell with a funnel about half way to the ground) but at that time I didn't feel like the environment in west alabama was the best for tornado development... We called it a day and decided to head back home!

Image courtesy of Michael Carter, Mississippi State University...

We got back around 6pm and went to go eat some mexican food... We left my house on Friday around noon and got back around 6pm Saturday! In total we drove just over 800 miles... I was VERY pleased with our forecasting!!! We nailed the best storm on Friday and we were all over the best environment on Saturday... Of course there is plenty of room for improvement but overall we did a great job in our analysis... As far as I know at this time 10 people died in the Yazoo storm and another 5 died in French Camp, MS storm which is located about 5 miles or so west of Ackerman, MS... Remember, both of these towns were in the path of the same monster long tracked tornado which possibly was on the ground for around 150 miles!

My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone that was affected by these storms! As a chaser I'm fascinated by tornadoes, but I never want to see anybody get hurt or killed... My heart breaks for all those people and their families! Even with the excellent forecasts/warnings sometimes these things happen... All I can do as a chaser is try to help when I can... Anytime I'm out I always talk to the locals just to make sure they understand the severity of the situation... Of course I'm not trying to scare anyone, but you would be surprised at how many people over the years I have warned... Even with all the great forecasts by the local media, NWS, SPC, some people still had NO IDEA bad weather was coming their way! I always say even if you help one person, you are doing a great job!

On a side note, if you are the first responder to a tornado, than of course you need to stop the storm chase and help immediately... That is just the right thing to do as a human being! If you are only out for the shot/video then you should probably reevaluate your thinking! I'm not trying to judge anyone but it has to be about the people first! However, if you show up when emergency personal are there, then you need to stay out of the way unless they specifically ask for your help... As a meteorologist I'll I can do is forecast to the best of my ability and warn everyone I can... Whether it's trough twitter, facebook, or a blog I feel I have a responsibility to warn everyone I can... Why be blessed with knowledge that can help people and not even use it in a positive light?

Situations like yesterday is why you should always try to learn as much as you can about the weather to be the best meteorologist/storm chaser you can be! You never know when it will be YOUR time to help... This is something I always try to stress to my students! Whether you are a broadcast meteorologist, in the NWS, or a storm chaser, the more you prepare in life, the better you will be able to handle difficult situations like yesterday... And this is true in anything to do in life... The more you put in, the more you get out! If you make mistakes, like I almost did yesterday, try to learned from them so they don't happen again! Even the best meteorologist/storm chaser makes many mistakes over a career, but IMO what separates the good from the average is the ones that learn from it and try their absolute best not to let it happen again... Not trying to go on a soap box there, but I really feel this is important!