saturday, may 10, 2003
middle supercell, carrolton area through chraneville
southern supercell, clifton hill through east of moberly
chase log:
| the upper trough from hell was finally ejecting. the warm sector was large and unbounded this time, and most every parameter was fully maximized for tornadoes… except that absolute helicity was assumedly small until the low started to bomb out that evening. as it was, a trio of angry supercells crossed much of northern missouri but remained non-tornadic for a few hours. i was in full-on zombie mode due to working graveyards the entire week and chasing so often, and made some stupid and lazy decisions as a result. i initially chased the middle of the three storms, but its 50-kt motion was near-impossible to match while driving with a certain degree of care on wet, hilly, curvy county roads. having shown occasional promise while i observed it... it became a prolific tornado-producer less than an hour after i let it go. i dropped south for the next storm, thereafter going on a radio station's information only as my weather radio had stopped working and i had no nowcasting help. the storm went through a rapid weakening phase and appeared outflow-dominant as i followed it through moberly. i pursued it for another half hour or so… and then made the decision to give up just when it was starting to look a little more intense. it didn’t help that the radio station i’d selected was broadcasting every little detail on the storm—replete with public reports—except for the fact that it was a tornado-warned monster with a hook echo. the storm dropped its first tornado near monroe city and was intermittently tornadic as it crossed into westcentral illinois. |