Chase DetailsSeptember 22, 2006 (Ozarks/MS River Valley Tornado Outbreak)
Chase Type: Tornado
Chasers: Reed Timmer, Joel Taylor
Location: MO/AR Ozarks
Distance: 800 miles
Tornadoes: 1
Max Hail Size: Golfball
Max Wind Speed: 75 mph
Summary
After chasing a supercell with INCREDIBLE structure the night before in the hills/trees of southeastern OK, we knew that Friday could be a tornado outbreak of historic proportions. The 00z models Thursday night indicated that western MO just east of a mini dryline bulge would be the best area for tornadoes, with backing winds, extreme low-level shear, and a CAPE maximum. However, the RUC model early Friday morning did not forecast this dryline bulge, and was hinting at a pre-frontal trough further east in central MO and AR, with backed winds to the east of this feature. It was clear that we would have to travel much further east into less than ideal storm chasing terrain to have a chance of seeing a nice tornado. I was prepared to go solo on this chase, because Joel was apprehensive about travelling into the dense forest and hills of the Ozark Mountains. However, since he had not seen a tornado yet this year and likely could not handle it emotionally if I saw a tornado solo, he decided to come along on this chase. We left at around 7:45 am for our initial target of Springfield, MO.
We never thought we would be in a hurry while driving to our target, because we thought initiation near Springfield just east of the pre-frontal trough would hold off until around 1 pm. We targeted south-central to southeast MO where the maximum deep-layer and low-level shear would be co-located with the deep moisture. As can be seen in Fig. 1 below, the north extent of the deep moisture tongue (>70 deg F dewpoints) extended into central MO by 00z Saturday, and a strong low-level jet (850 mb flow of 40-50 kts) extended from AR into central MO as well.
FIG. 1. 00z Sept. 23, 2006 WRF analysis for surface (left), 850 mb (center), and 500 mb (right).
Since we never thought initiation would occur between 11:00 am and noon, we decided to stop for food in Joplin, MO. The first mistake was that we stopped, and the second mistake was that we had burritos for lunch, which resulted in some serious complication as we were flying south on the winding, hilly roads through the Ozarks later that afternoon. After we finished lunch, we noticed towering cumulus already exploding to our east just west of Springfield, MO along the pre-frontal convergence line. We talked to Aaron Ruppert on the phone and he said he was already underneath a developing storm just south of Springfield. We fired up the internet, and saw that a "Particularly Dangerous Situation" (PDS) tornado watch had been issued for much of southern MO, northwest AR, and eastern OK (Fig. 2), and the storms were already showing up on radar near Springfield, and to our south in northwest AR. Realizing that storms would be moving ENE at 55 knots+, we flew east on I-44 to catch up with the developing storms. Based on our experience with severe weather outbreaks east of the Great Plains, we knew that the initial band of supercells would likely be the show of the day, and the any storms developing further west along the front later in the day would be linear or non-tornadic supercells given the strong frontal forcing and veered winds west of the initial pre-frontal convergence line. This intensified our desire to fly east and position ourselves to the east of this initial band of developing supercells.
The first tornado warning was issued just after noon CDT just to the north of I-44. We could see the tower and crisp anvil of this storm to our northeast, and decided to continue flying east on I-44 to not only put ourselves in position to intercept storms developing to our south, but also to possibly catch the tornado-warned cell to our northeast. Via extrapolation, we thought we could easily intercept this tornado-warned cell 70 miles to our northeast near Rolla, MO on I-44 if we wanted to. However, if a better supercell developed to our south, we could easily intercept it from the northeast. As we closed in on Rolla, MO, the tornadic supercell to our north had intensified, and was exhibiting incredible low-level rotation on radar and a textbook hook echo (Radar Image #1 and #2 below). We gained visual of the rear flank downdraft (RFD), and the right side of a very nice looking wall cloud to our northeast at this time (General Photo #1, #2, #3, and #4 below). Unfortunately, the hook rain was blocking our view of the rest of this wall cloud. The RFD was very pronounced, and we could see a low-level inflow band rapidly flowing into the east side of the wall cloud. As we were passing underneath the RFD just east of Rolla, MO, we thought we were going to be in perfect position for a tornado intercept along I-44 in just a few minutes. HOWEVER, just as we were gaining a visual of the potential tornado, we came to complete stop in a massive traffic jam in a construction zone on the west side of St. James. We thought about driving across a deep ditch to get to the frontage road, but if we got stuck there, our chase for the rest of the afternoon would be over. Thus, we watched in agony as this incredible supercell moved away from us at 60 mph, and to make things worse, we heard reports of a tornado crossing the interstate about 5-10 miles to our east!! The damage path of this F-1 tornado, along with our position in the traffic jam can be seen in Fig 3 below.
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FIG 2. Particularly Dangerous Situation FIG 3. Damage path from the F-1 tornado that
(PDS) tornado watch issued by noon CDT. touched down while we were stuck in traffic.
In a state of deep depression, we knew it was time to make an executive decision. It was impossible to catch the supercell we missed because of the traffic jam, but there was an even more impressive supercell to our southeast. We had a brief discussion/argument about whether we could catch this supercell in southwest IL, and even considered driving up to St. Louis and back south along the Mississippi River in Illinois, where we might have been able to intercept the supercell to our southeast there. However, traffic in St. Louis and windy roads would make this option more prone to failure. In hindsight, we may have been able to catch the mile wide F-4 tornado that this storm went on to produce in Perry Co., MO and southwestern IL just east of the River (Fig. 5). The logical decision at the time was to fly south through the Ozark Mountains to intercept later development in south-central MO and north-central AR, where wind shear and CAPE was still very favorable for large tornadoes.
The drive through the Ozarks was HORRIBLE, because the roads were VERY windy with massive hills and valleys, and we had to drive at a high rate of speed to intercept the fast moving storms developing to our southwest. I had never experienced motion sickness in my entire life until this drive through the Ozarks, and eating a massive burrito earlier definitely complicated the situation. As Joel drove like a mad man on this country road through the mountains, I was fighting desperately to keep from puking all over the inside of the car. Meanwhile, the storms to our southwest in north-central AR were intensifying rapidly and began showing supercellular characteristics! After a brief heated discussion in south-central MO about whether to head west or due south and then west, we decided to catch the best looking storm in north-central AR. Out plan was to head SSW along back roads to Ash Flat, AR, and then west from there to intercept. Given the forested, mountainous terrain and bad road network, we knew we would have to get lucky to see a tornado.
As we closed in on Ash Flat, the supercell started showing intense rotation on radar and a beautiful hook echo (Radar Image #3, #4, and #5 below). It looked like we were destined to see a tornado in the Ozarks of AR, after our numerous frustrating busts there in years prior!! From northeast of Ash Flat, we could see the crisp tower and anvil of this textbook supercell (General Photo #5, #6, and #7 below). At Ash Flat, we flew southwest towards Franklin, AR, and gained visual of a rapidly developing wall cloud right on top of our road (General Photo #8 and #9). We pulled over and watched the wall cloud gust slowly to the south of road and develop rapid rotation. Intermittent golf ball-sized hail pounded our car as we watched the wall cloud become better organized. As the intense core of the supercell closed in on us from the west, we turned around and drove east on our WNW-ENE oriented road, and watched small white funnels forming and dissipating on the north side of the area of rotation. Then, we saw a small tube of rapidly rotating condensation form just above the surface, well below a small bulb-funnel above it. The core north of the forward flank was rapidly enveloping us, and we hoped that the tornado would mature before we lost visual. Just as the core was about to destroy us, a black cone funnel began to descend from the cloud base (General Photo #11-16 below). A few seconds later, we saw rapidly rising/rotating condensation, dust, and debris rising into the descending funnel (General Photo #17-19), and Joel and I celebrated our first Ozark Mountains tornado just before the core pounded us and we lost visual of the tornado. The track of this F-1 tornado can be seen in Fig. 4 below. According the the NWS Little Rock, several mobile homes were destroyed from this tornado, but no one was injured.
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FIG 4 Damage survey results from the FIG 5. Damage path from the F-4, mile-wide
tornado we documented in AR at ~6:00 pm. tornado in IL near the Miss. River.
When the core enveloped us and blocked our view of the tornado, we decided to fly east through the 70+ mph winds and hail through Ash Flat and southeast towards Center, AR for another intercept of the tornado. As we emerged from the core, we saw a massive wall cloud and a rapidly rotating funnel that was clearly lifting and dissipating. This was likely the tornado that we saw develop about 10 minutes prior. Another wall cloud had already developed to our northeast, and was moving rapidly away at 60 mph. If this tornado had stayed on the ground for a little longer, or had developed about 2 miles further north, we would have had INCREDIBLE video. Unfortunately, luck was not completely on our side. Still through, with extreme resolve, we decided to pursue the newly developed wall cloud despite its rapid speed. We flew east at a dangerous rate of speed on a small dirt road through the backwoods of the Ozarks for about 5-10 miles, plowing through small streams that were crossing over the road in spots because of the heavy rains, but we were clearly losing ground on this incredible supercell. To make things worse, sunset was closing in. After sunset, we chased a few more supercells that were lined up in northern AR (Radar Image #7) with the help of frequent lightning, but did not see anything of interest.
We consider this chase an extreme success considering the horrible storm chasing conditions in the Ozark Mountains. In the past, we had tried on several occasions to chase fast-moving supercells in the Ozarks, but our efforts were always futile. This chase was different, and we shot one of the first known videos of a tornado in the heart of the Ozark Mountains! 35-40 tornadoes were reported from this historic September outbreak, including a mile wide F-4 tornado in southeast MO and southwest IL!
We never thought we would be in a hurry while driving to our target, because we thought initiation near Springfield just east of the pre-frontal trough would hold off until around 1 pm. We targeted south-central to southeast MO where the maximum deep-layer and low-level shear would be co-located with the deep moisture. As can be seen in Fig. 1 below, the north extent of the deep moisture tongue (>70 deg F dewpoints) extended into central MO by 00z Saturday, and a strong low-level jet (850 mb flow of 40-50 kts) extended from AR into central MO as well.
FIG. 1. 00z Sept. 23, 2006 WRF analysis for surface (left), 850 mb (center), and 500 mb (right).
Since we never thought initiation would occur between 11:00 am and noon, we decided to stop for food in Joplin, MO. The first mistake was that we stopped, and the second mistake was that we had burritos for lunch, which resulted in some serious complication as we were flying south on the winding, hilly roads through the Ozarks later that afternoon. After we finished lunch, we noticed towering cumulus already exploding to our east just west of Springfield, MO along the pre-frontal convergence line. We talked to Aaron Ruppert on the phone and he said he was already underneath a developing storm just south of Springfield. We fired up the internet, and saw that a "Particularly Dangerous Situation" (PDS) tornado watch had been issued for much of southern MO, northwest AR, and eastern OK (Fig. 2), and the storms were already showing up on radar near Springfield, and to our south in northwest AR. Realizing that storms would be moving ENE at 55 knots+, we flew east on I-44 to catch up with the developing storms. Based on our experience with severe weather outbreaks east of the Great Plains, we knew that the initial band of supercells would likely be the show of the day, and the any storms developing further west along the front later in the day would be linear or non-tornadic supercells given the strong frontal forcing and veered winds west of the initial pre-frontal convergence line. This intensified our desire to fly east and position ourselves to the east of this initial band of developing supercells.
The first tornado warning was issued just after noon CDT just to the north of I-44. We could see the tower and crisp anvil of this storm to our northeast, and decided to continue flying east on I-44 to not only put ourselves in position to intercept storms developing to our south, but also to possibly catch the tornado-warned cell to our northeast. Via extrapolation, we thought we could easily intercept this tornado-warned cell 70 miles to our northeast near Rolla, MO on I-44 if we wanted to. However, if a better supercell developed to our south, we could easily intercept it from the northeast. As we closed in on Rolla, MO, the tornadic supercell to our north had intensified, and was exhibiting incredible low-level rotation on radar and a textbook hook echo (Radar Image #1 and #2 below). We gained visual of the rear flank downdraft (RFD), and the right side of a very nice looking wall cloud to our northeast at this time (General Photo #1, #2, #3, and #4 below). Unfortunately, the hook rain was blocking our view of the rest of this wall cloud. The RFD was very pronounced, and we could see a low-level inflow band rapidly flowing into the east side of the wall cloud. As we were passing underneath the RFD just east of Rolla, MO, we thought we were going to be in perfect position for a tornado intercept along I-44 in just a few minutes. HOWEVER, just as we were gaining a visual of the potential tornado, we came to complete stop in a massive traffic jam in a construction zone on the west side of St. James. We thought about driving across a deep ditch to get to the frontage road, but if we got stuck there, our chase for the rest of the afternoon would be over. Thus, we watched in agony as this incredible supercell moved away from us at 60 mph, and to make things worse, we heard reports of a tornado crossing the interstate about 5-10 miles to our east!! The damage path of this F-1 tornado, along with our position in the traffic jam can be seen in Fig 3 below.
FIG 2. Particularly Dangerous Situation FIG 3. Damage path from the F-1 tornado that
(PDS) tornado watch issued by noon CDT. touched down while we were stuck in traffic.
In a state of deep depression, we knew it was time to make an executive decision. It was impossible to catch the supercell we missed because of the traffic jam, but there was an even more impressive supercell to our southeast. We had a brief discussion/argument about whether we could catch this supercell in southwest IL, and even considered driving up to St. Louis and back south along the Mississippi River in Illinois, where we might have been able to intercept the supercell to our southeast there. However, traffic in St. Louis and windy roads would make this option more prone to failure. In hindsight, we may have been able to catch the mile wide F-4 tornado that this storm went on to produce in Perry Co., MO and southwestern IL just east of the River (Fig. 5). The logical decision at the time was to fly south through the Ozark Mountains to intercept later development in south-central MO and north-central AR, where wind shear and CAPE was still very favorable for large tornadoes.
The drive through the Ozarks was HORRIBLE, because the roads were VERY windy with massive hills and valleys, and we had to drive at a high rate of speed to intercept the fast moving storms developing to our southwest. I had never experienced motion sickness in my entire life until this drive through the Ozarks, and eating a massive burrito earlier definitely complicated the situation. As Joel drove like a mad man on this country road through the mountains, I was fighting desperately to keep from puking all over the inside of the car. Meanwhile, the storms to our southwest in north-central AR were intensifying rapidly and began showing supercellular characteristics! After a brief heated discussion in south-central MO about whether to head west or due south and then west, we decided to catch the best looking storm in north-central AR. Out plan was to head SSW along back roads to Ash Flat, AR, and then west from there to intercept. Given the forested, mountainous terrain and bad road network, we knew we would have to get lucky to see a tornado.
As we closed in on Ash Flat, the supercell started showing intense rotation on radar and a beautiful hook echo (Radar Image #3, #4, and #5 below). It looked like we were destined to see a tornado in the Ozarks of AR, after our numerous frustrating busts there in years prior!! From northeast of Ash Flat, we could see the crisp tower and anvil of this textbook supercell (General Photo #5, #6, and #7 below). At Ash Flat, we flew southwest towards Franklin, AR, and gained visual of a rapidly developing wall cloud right on top of our road (General Photo #8 and #9). We pulled over and watched the wall cloud gust slowly to the south of road and develop rapid rotation. Intermittent golf ball-sized hail pounded our car as we watched the wall cloud become better organized. As the intense core of the supercell closed in on us from the west, we turned around and drove east on our WNW-ENE oriented road, and watched small white funnels forming and dissipating on the north side of the area of rotation. Then, we saw a small tube of rapidly rotating condensation form just above the surface, well below a small bulb-funnel above it. The core north of the forward flank was rapidly enveloping us, and we hoped that the tornado would mature before we lost visual. Just as the core was about to destroy us, a black cone funnel began to descend from the cloud base (General Photo #11-16 below). A few seconds later, we saw rapidly rising/rotating condensation, dust, and debris rising into the descending funnel (General Photo #17-19), and Joel and I celebrated our first Ozark Mountains tornado just before the core pounded us and we lost visual of the tornado. The track of this F-1 tornado can be seen in Fig. 4 below. According the the NWS Little Rock, several mobile homes were destroyed from this tornado, but no one was injured.
FIG 4 Damage survey results from the FIG 5. Damage path from the F-4, mile-wide
tornado we documented in AR at ~6:00 pm. tornado in IL near the Miss. River.
When the core enveloped us and blocked our view of the tornado, we decided to fly east through the 70+ mph winds and hail through Ash Flat and southeast towards Center, AR for another intercept of the tornado. As we emerged from the core, we saw a massive wall cloud and a rapidly rotating funnel that was clearly lifting and dissipating. This was likely the tornado that we saw develop about 10 minutes prior. Another wall cloud had already developed to our northeast, and was moving rapidly away at 60 mph. If this tornado had stayed on the ground for a little longer, or had developed about 2 miles further north, we would have had INCREDIBLE video. Unfortunately, luck was not completely on our side. Still through, with extreme resolve, we decided to pursue the newly developed wall cloud despite its rapid speed. We flew east at a dangerous rate of speed on a small dirt road through the backwoods of the Ozarks for about 5-10 miles, plowing through small streams that were crossing over the road in spots because of the heavy rains, but we were clearly losing ground on this incredible supercell. To make things worse, sunset was closing in. After sunset, we chased a few more supercells that were lined up in northern AR (Radar Image #7) with the help of frequent lightning, but did not see anything of interest.
We consider this chase an extreme success considering the horrible storm chasing conditions in the Ozark Mountains. In the past, we had tried on several occasions to chase fast-moving supercells in the Ozarks, but our efforts were always futile. This chase was different, and we shot one of the first known videos of a tornado in the heart of the Ozark Mountains! 35-40 tornadoes were reported from this historic September outbreak, including a mile wide F-4 tornado in southeast MO and southwest IL!
Radar Images
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General Photos
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Highlight Video
WARNING: This may contain language not suitable for children! Be advised!
tornado storm chasers video F-5 supercell
After getting stuck in a traffic jam minutes from seeing a tornado near Rolla, MO on September 22, 2006. TornadoVideos.net stormchasers regroup and fly 4 hours south into the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas where they documented an F-1 tornado just southwest of Ash Flat, AR.
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