Chase Report: 26 Mar, 2011- Crazy in Alabama

I-22/Hwy 78 Alabama Supercell
Wall Clouds, Funnels, Phantom tornadoes

Broad, low wall cloud with inflow band near Cordova, AL, ~8:26CDT, 3/26/2011:

Left Austin about 4:45 a.m. (all times CDT). Initial target was Winona, MS, where parameters looked most favorable for afternoon/evening supercells. SPC upgraded a chunk of MS/AL/W GA to MDT on the 1630 Day 1 outlook:

Around the time I was crossing the MS river on I-20, storms fired and rapidly became supercellular near Meridian, MS. A TOR box went up for a swath of AL and GA for this activity. Numerous supercells produced numerous tornado warnings for the next several hours across the watch area. Rather than try to catch this activity, I elected to stick with my original target and turned north on 55 in Jackson. Realistically, I don't think I could have gotten into the initial action in time in AL and GA, and terrain in that area is among the worst I have chased in.

Moving north along 55, I crossed the damage track of the 4/24/2010 Yazoo City super tornado. A swath of trees at least .5 miles long on both sides of the interstate were literally sheared off not far above the surface (20-30 ft). I have seen this signature before from other violent tornadoes- Limestone County AL, 5/18/1995 among others.

Arrived in Winona 2:45 p.m., with clear blue skies and surface temps in low 80's. Quickly noted surface winds were SW, which did not bode well for low-level rotation. With nothing anywhere nearby, I decided to wait, as I was at least near the warm front, and HRRR was showing cells popping in the 22-0Z time frame near my location.

Around 5 p.m., I noted a tower had popped up to my NE. It did not look like much, but I immediately turned back east and went charging after it. A new cell had popped South of the line in North MS, and was now showing up on radar, albeit only weak echoes. As it began to strengthen, it became apparent that it was well ahead of me, 60-80 miles to my NE, and my prospects of catching it weren't great. I had to hope that it would move ESE and track along the warm front and into the moist tongue, which is exactly what it did. I cut NE on 12 at Columbus, MS, with a nice view of the strengthening cell to my NNE, complete with anvil and hard tower. Time is ~6:27, view NNE:

About the time I crossed into AL, the storm went tornado-warned. I got to Guin, AL a few minutes behind the circulation, and noted a possible lowering obstructed by the Guin downtown buildings. No good shots of the lowering at this stage, but one nice lightning capture as I went through town. Time is ~7:20, view is east:

I took 118 E out of Guin through Winfield and Glen Allen in dwindling daylight, continuing to note possible lowerings to my East. I finally approached the radar-indicated circulation near the town of Eldridge, and noted a solid wall-cloud south of my location near Eldridge. I reported this and continued east on 118 through Carbon Hill and onto the I22/78 corridor. Stopped just West of Jasper at 7:58 with a large Wall cloud to my immediate south. Here is the location and appx. look angle of the next few screen grabs:

A couple of moments later, what appeared to be a funnel cloud became evident. Upon careful review of the video, it looks like the funnel is actually behind the wall cloud. Here are a couple of captures:

I began to get rain and small hail, so proceeded ESE on 22/78. Got a couple more looks at the funnelish feature while moving:

At 8:18, I stopped again. Talked to some other chasers, who alerted me to a new circulation just to the North of the highway, in the vicinity of Cordova. At ~8:26, I filmed an ominous wall cloud with protuberances for several minutes. Terrain blocked the lowest level of the feature. Over the next 30 minutes, it would exhibit double wall cloud structure, funnels, inflow tail, and essentially everything but a confirmed tornado. Location and appx. look angle:

Continued ESE on 22/78, filming the area of ciruclation and stopping occasionally. I never saw evidence of a tornado on the ground. During this time, spotter reports of a large tornado prompted continued tornado warnings. These reports turned out to be erroneous, although from my visual evidence at the time, I did not doubt a tornado was in progress.

Despite all these ground-hugging wall clouds, funnels, etc., NWS BMX has not surveyed any tornadic damage from this cell to my current knowledge. That doesn't mean it did not produce briefly a time or two along its path, but without an official damage survey, the video evidence does not support calling any of these features a tornado. The wall cloud/circulation began to get further to my east, and about that time, my outdated version of Delormes had me in the middle of nowhere. Had to call a friend to get me back on track. Made it back to 65, by which time the tornado warning had been canceled.

I stayed on the 65 corridor north of Birmingham for another hour, picking up a couple more cells as they crossed the interstate. Did not see anything else of note, though. Headed towards home, and made it as far as Meridian, MS. Stayed the night in the Relax Inn on the north side of the frontage road on I20 in Meridian. Wasn't the worst dump I have stayed in, although every time I flushed the toilet, water shot out the back of the tank lid. Here is the full GPS log of the chase up until just south of Birmingham, where I disabled the GPS:

Got up Sunday and drove back to Austin. Special thanks to Bill Tabor for providing nowcasting support during some of the hairier moments of the chase.

Depart Austin, TX: 4:45 a.m.
Arrive Meridan, MS 1:00 a.m.
Solo chase
1165 miles, 20h15m
1855 miles 2-day round trip total

Chase Report: 8 March, 2011 - Lamar/Red River county supercell

SPC started with a slight risk for the day, then upped a chunk of LA and Southern MS to a MDT in their 1630 update, with a 15% hatched tornado area:

We left Austin around 8:45, There were two broad target areas for the day. First was the dryline which was forecast to be near the I-35 corridor in N TX in the afternoon. Second was the open warm sector, covering most of LA, Southern AR, and SW MS. By around noon, we were heading east on 20 between Dallas and SHV, and briefly toyed with the idea of heading into the warm sector target, which SPC had just upgraded to MDT. The dryline target was a bit more conditional, and also storms along the dryline would be working with less helicity/shear, as the 850 jet was forecast to be translating away from N TX later in the day.

Shortly after 1 CST, convection did fire (far earlier than most models were showing) north of DFW in North Texas. We stopped at Longview, and turned back NW, heading towards this initially small set of discrete cells. Tornado watch went up shortly thereafter for NE Texas and SE OK.

We caught the first cell to generate a tornado warning in western Lamar county near Brookston. The radar-indicated circulation was heading east just south of Hwy 82 in our direction. We were moving south on FM 38 trying to clear the front flank of the storm and beat the circulation. Time is 4:11 CST, view is SW:

A laminar funnel/lowering with wrapping rain curtains crossed 38 just to our south, at which point we turned and moved back North up to 82. The lowering is near the top of this image, well above ground level. Time-lapse review of the video shows this feature was rotating. Time is ~413 CST, view is South:

NWS surveyed a non-continuous damage path from a weak tornado. Here is the survey info and diagram:

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FORT WORTH TX
731 PM CST THU MAR 10 2011

...PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT...

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE METEOROLOGISTS FROM THE FORT WORTH
FORECAST OFFICE CONDUCTED A STORM DAMAGE SURVEY IN LAMAR COUNTY
AND DETERMINED AN EF0 TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN AROUND 415 PM CST ON
MARCH 8TH. THE TORNADO PATH WAS NON-CONTINUOUS...BUT TOTALED 4
MILES WITH A MAXIMUM WIDTH OF ABOUT 200 FEET. THE MAXIMUM WIND
SPEED WAS ESTIMATED TO BE 65 TO 70 MPH. THE TORNADO INITIALLY
TOUCHED DOWN NEAR 33.6053 DEGREES NORTH AND -95.7812 DEGREES WEST
AND FINALLY LIFTED NEAR 33.6144 DEGREES NORTH AND -95.7148 DEGREES
WEST.

We got there a couple of minutes too late to see a tornado, but it is obvious the lowering with the wrapping rain curtains we shot crossing just south of us was the remnant circulation of that tornado. In the figure, red line is the tornado track, yellow line = 1 mile, and our position and look angle are shown by green dots and blue arrow respectively.

Heading back to Paris, we swung south on loop 236 and stopped at the intersection of 236 and FM 137. At about 4:25, a ragged rotating wall cloud was visible just to the west of our location. A narrow band of very low-level cloud tags was rapidly feeding into the circulation. Here is a pic of the wall cloud at time, looking west from 236/137. Time is ~4:25 CST

Here is a radar image of the circulation and our position from Spotter Net during this time frame (image courtesy of Adam Cuker).

And here is our Delorme's GPS log showing our position and the position of the Paris and Brookston storm features we observed:

We moved east on 236 to the intersection of 236 and Hwy 271. The area of circulation approached, and we decided to head south on 271, rather than try to get up to 82 and follow the storm eastward. My thinking was that we could move SE on 271, then north out of Deport or Bogata and get back to cell. Did not want to trail it in the core.

Once we got to Bogata, we still could have moved N and intercepted the storm again, but new cells were now intensifying to the initial cell's SW. We decided to head back West and intercept the northernmost new cell. While we moved back NW on 271, the Paris cell produced at least on confirmed tornado east of Detroit. The same or a separate tornado also produced damage north of Clarksville along 82.

Electing not to trail the cell east out of Paris cost us a shot at seeing the tornadoes. Had we moved back up to 82 to follow the cell, there is still no guarantee we would have caught the tubes. From other reports, they were rain-wrapped and low contrast. Still, there is at least a decent chance we would have caught them had we been able to navigate around the core. Lesson learned- if you see visual indication of rapid low-level rotation, stay with it as long as you can safely do so. Do not assume the next storm in the line will also be rotating.

By near sunset, multiple cells had formed in a broken line from the initial tornado producer SW down to and south of I-20. We gingerly moved south, picking off a couple of these cells as we made our way home. Had some interesting after-dark scary-looking lowerings on a sub-severe cell south of Frankston, TX.

Depart Austin, TX: 9:45 a.m.
Arrive Austin, TX: 1:15 a.m.
875 miles , 16:30h
Chase Partner: John S