A few days ago was the three year anniversary of the September 22, 2006 severe weather outbreak, when TVN intercepted an incredible supercell just west of Ash Flat, AR in Izard County in the middle of the Ozark Mountains.  This day was very important for TornadoVideos.net, because if it weren't for this tornado we may never have met Heidi, who keeps this site afloat!  Heidi lived in Izard County at the time, and her house was right in the path of this cyclic supercell, and little did we know when we first caught site of the rapidly rotating wall cloud that preceeded the tornado, Heidi was right underneath it at the same time in her neighbor's tornado shelter!  Just before the wall cloud developed, her house was hammered by baseball and larger hail (Heidi took the picture at left).

43 tornadoes were reported during this long duration severe weather outbreak, mainly across Missouri and Arkansas.  We began the day on a tornadic supercell in central Missouri near the town of St. James, but were caught in a traffic jam on I-44 just minutes behind the tornado (the wraparound rain obscured our view) and missed it.  We then targeted a new cluster of supercells moving out of NW Arkansas, and decided to make the 5 hour trip south through the heart of the Ozarks.  Joel and I both got motion sickness from the intense winding roads through the mountains, but was well worth it when we intercepted the textbook supercell in Izard County by around 6 pm CDT.  Right when we intercepted the supercell, a massive rotating wall cloud developed and gusted a little south of the remote road we were on.  Just as we were about to lose visibility of the wall cloud from the rain core, we saw a small laminar funnel extend down from the base with a debris could underneath.  This tornado was very close to Heidi's location!  Click "more" below for our Youtube clip from this day, as well as wall-to-wall coverage from Ryan Vaughan from Channel 8 news in Jonesboro whose broadcast saved many lives that day.