This
was
an unexpected start to the 2018 chase season for
us. The afternoon before, Brian Stertz and I had
discussed the possibility of a chase, but dismissed
the idea as parameters just did not look too
right. No supercells. A quick transition
to a line. I never even looked at data after
that until I get a text from Brian again around 9:30am
letting me know that things had changed for the
afternoon and now things were looking much better for
a potential chase in Southeastern Missouri or
Northeastern Arkansas. Now there was isolated
supercells, potential tornadoes, and a healthy uptick
in the Storm Prediction Center outlook. Although
Brian was unable to chase, that information put me
into a scramble mode to try getting a chase put
together in a rather short window of
opportunity. I was able to secure our friend,
Tom Zeitinger to join me for a chase. At the
very last minute, my son Ryan got off of work and was
able to join us as well. By 12:15pm, we were on
the road.
Our original target
was going to be Sikeston, Missouri where we
anticipated stopping to reassess the situation as we
filled the gas tank. The HRRR weather model was
consistent in showing a couple of supercells cutting
east across southeastern Missouri along with several
more down in Arkansas. This continued to hold
true for each new model run which solidified our
decision for this Sikeston target. When we
arrived in Sikeston, we wavered a little and then
decided to continue going west to Poplar Bluff as
radar indicated the very start of some cells out by
Branson, MO. There were also cells forming down
in Arkansas that needed to be monitored as well.
When we got to Dexter, MO, we then got the gas tank
filled and decided to make this town our hangout town
as we watched the storms develop out to the
west. From here, we had good road network in all
directions unlike that of Poplar Bluff. We
grabbed some lunch at the Burger King in town and
watched the radar and gathered more data. As
things progressed, there were two cells that were of
greatest interest. One of them was down inside
the Arkansas border to our southwest and the other was
the Branson cell to the west heading right toward
Poplar Bluff. We watched and got feedback from
Brian Stertz who was now also watching the storm data
from his home and providing some nowcasting for us.
As the storms moved
closer, our decision was finally made to stick with
the cell that was heading toward Poplar Bluff.
It weakened slightly as it approached Poplar Bluff
which caused us some concern, but the weakening was
short lived and it began increasing in severity
again. It quickly became severe warned. We had moved south out
of Dexter just
far enough so that we knew we'd be out of the
storm's path, and then moved west to meet the
storm. This route we hoped would put us in a
spot to safely look into the interesting part of
the storm as it approached. As
we met the storm, it had now become tornado
warned. Unfortunately, the storm had a lot of
haze and rain curtains wrapping around the wall cloud
which made for difficult viewing.
April 03, 2018 
