2018Oct09pictures.html

After following the weather models for a few days and not thinking much of the chances of tornadoes, we dismissed the idea of chasing. But as things usually work out, the morning of we made the decision to go ahead and try dealing with the stormy day as it may be the last of the season. Going in we knew one of the major drawbacks to the day would be the river flooding from the monstrous amount of rain in northwest Missouri.

I picked up my son Ryan at his place around 9:00am and we headed toward our target in Northwestern Missouri. My initial target was Bethany, Missouri. Although Brian Stertz was unable to chase with us today, he chimed in with his initial target a bit further west at Maryville, Missouri. We chose to take Highway 61 north to Hannibal, MO, then west on Highway 36 to our target. We stopped for lunch at our "lucky" chain restaurant (Pizza Hut) for the lunch buffet in Macon, MO, then back on the road westward. We stopped to top off the gas tank in Chillicothe, MO and looked at the weather data again. Upon looking, we decided that we would hold in Chillicothe to watch and wait.

As we watched the radar, we began noticing a cell to our southwest that began to take on an interesting Supercell shape and look. We didn't stick around and immediately began making our way toward that cell. The movement of the cell was projecting it to cross about 10 miles west of Chillicothe. As we worked our way west, the weather alert comes on announcing a Tornado Warning with a confirmed Tornado soon after. As we continued to work our way toward the storm, we began to see the results of the major rainfall on the road with the flooding closing down parts of Highway 36. Looking ahead at the storm path, we noticed a creek without any bridge crossing north of the highway, so our plan was to catch this storm before it crossed Highway 36 and then we would need to play catch up as we worked around the bad road network. We exited Highway 36 at State Route "A" and proceeded south toward the storm now coming right next to us to the west. The base was beginning to come into view and then....well, the story of the day. Flooded Road.

Decided to go west again on Highway 36 through the rain to get to a road north to wrap back toward the business part of the storm. We eventually worked our way north on State Highway 13, then northeast on State Highway 6. We worked our way out in front of the storm again, but the storm had lost all characteristics of a supercell and showed zero rotation. In fact, as we got to Trenton, MO and regained data access which we had lost since Highway 36, we looked at the entire radar scan of the area within a one hundred mile radius, no warning and radar looked a mess. The thought was time to pack the equipment and head home early.

Wait a minute! Out of no where, the cell 15 miles due north of Trenton surprisingly gets a new tornado warning on it. Doesn't look that impressive on the radar, but we shot out of Trenton heading for the cell. Yes, this was actually the same cell an hour earlier that had the tornado warning south of Highway 36 that seem to regenerate and trigger the warning again. Then, like before, we heard the words "confirmed tornado". We followed this cell and eventually caught up to this cell and were watching several other cells around it as we continued to push northward into Linnville, IA. The lure of tornado warnings and minor couplets on radar kept pulling us further northward with jogs east and west along the way as needed. Once again, cell service for our data was non existent. Our movement was stopped rather abruptly as we continued northward following the once tornado warned storm by a "Road Closed - 6 Miles Ahead" sign. We drove around the sign anyway and traveled the last 6 miles paralleling the storm. We slammed on the brakes at one point due to something that looked very suspicious. Never could verify any circulation, but certainly had a shape worthy of a second look extending up into the cloud.