Chase Logs

2006 Chase Logs

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March 12th Western/Central Missouri

March 12, 2006 will defiantly go down as one of my most memorable chases. The day started with a 2:00 am forecast before I left for work. I decided to go ahead and give chasing a shot despite the 90+ kt 500mb winds. My plan was simple, get on a good road in front of a supercell and use it to observe/avoid the tornado as it goes flying by.

At around 10 AM the remnants of the Lawrence baseball hail producing supercell crossed the warmfront and dumped pea to marble sized hail on MCI where I was working. When I got off work at 12:40 pm a string of supercells had developed along the dryline from south of Lawrence trailing SSW into SE Kansas. I targeted the northern most cell as it entered the KC metro area. When this cell approached it looked ragged and outflow dominant so I quickly dropped south and east to a major supercell south of Harrisonville, MO. This cell looked impressive on radar but not so good in person. It was also ragged and HP. I wasn’t interested in trying to punch the rain curtains to see what was in there so once again I dropped south and east to the next supercell.

This next supercell was a monster. It produced more than 20 tornadoes as it raced from NE Oklahoma all the way to Michigan. Unfortunately, it didn’t look all that great when I was in perfect position to view it near Butler, MO. Its updraft base was ragged and disorganized, and its updraft was leaned over at a 45-degree angle. This storm was tail-end-charley so I tried my hardest to stay with it as long as possible. I lucked out because the storm rapidly became organized as it followed a SW-NE road from Clinton, MO to Windsor, MO. I observed a well-defined funnel/tornado from 3:50 to 4:03 PM near Windsor, MO. A few minutes later I crossed its damage path 4 miles east of Windsor. The damage appeared to be F1 intensity.

Tornado near Windsor, MO

My SW-NE road now turned to the east so I started to fall further behind the storm. At the same time, a new or previously obscured tornado became visible to the north near Green Ridge, MO.

This was the early stages of the Sedalia, MO long-track tornado.

As the supercell and I approached Sedalia, MO its storm scale rotation was violent. I was about 4 miles south of the tornado as it crossed 65 on the south side of Sedalia. I crossed the tornadoes damage 1 ½ miles south of Sedalia and was surprised by how weak it was. It produced only F0-F1 damage along a narrow path. ½ mile latter I found out that was just a satellite tornado. The real damage track was 1/3 to ½ mile wide with F2 like damage to some businesses and trees. As the tornado moved into more populated areas of Sedalia I didn’t want to get in the way of emergency personnel, so I let that tornado go, and tried to flank the storm by going north to I-70 and east to Columbia.

Tornado approaching Sedalia, MO.

Damaging tornado.

I meet up with the Piotrowski’s on I-70 as we were both trying to beat the storm to Columbia. This strategy failed because tornadoes associated with another supercell had crossed I-70 less than an hour before. People were parked under overpasses inches off the road with cars whizzing by in heavy rain at 70+ MPH. For the life of me I don’t understand how people think this is a way to protect their families. With my truck on empty, I reached Columbia at 5:35 PM well behind my target supercell so I decided to call it a day.

Because my route home I-70 westbound was closed due to tornado damaged vehicles in the roadway, I had to find an alternate route home. I tried to take a state road that weaves its way from Lamine, MO to Marshall, MO. This route was blocked 2 miles east of Blackwater, MO by what appeared to be a significant tornado’s damage swath. At 7:30 PM I was forced to take muddy bob’s roads in an effort to get around this damage path. LOL! Did I forget to mention that another violent tornadic supercell was racing towards me a 45 MPH? Luckily, I made it back to pavement and proceeded to a point 5 miles WNW of Arrow Rock, MO. This area was on high ground and had few trees so I decided to take some lightning stills and watch for the approaching tornado.

Lighting near Arrow Rock, MO as tornadic supercell approaches.

At 8:29 PM I could make out a large blocky wallcloud/tornado (T1) scraping the ground to the WSW. At the same time golf ball hail began falling so I repositioned ESE 1 mile.

At 8:35 I was on the phone with the KC NWS office reporting the golf ball hail and wallcloud (T1) to my west when I observed another tornado (T2) close by heading my direction. With the NWS still on the phone I reported the new tornado (T2) while repositioning further east.

This image shows the new tornado (T2) as it crossed HW 41 west of Arrow Rock. After viewing this tornado (T2), a third tornado (T3) then came into sight ½ mile to the southwest of the this one (T2). At the time I thought it was a satellite tornado.

These two tornadoes (T2 & T3) traveled 7.5 miles separated by 1/2 mile or less. Damage Tracks

Near the Missouri River the two paralleling tornadoes appear to develop into a single wedge shaped tornado. Or was it two long-tracked vortices within a single tornado that developed into a wedge? I'm not really sure.

Chase Partner: Solo Vehicle: Chevy S-10 Miles: 514