The first storm chase opportunity of the year brought our entire chase team, Brian, Ryan, and I together for this event.  The Storm Prediction Center issued a Moderate Risk that was later upgraded to high risk in two areas.  

Brian came in from his place in Kansas City on Thursday night, so we were up at 7:00am Friday ready to head for our target.  Brian's forecast targeted Jonesboro, Arkansas as it showed the highest potential for the visible, strong, and long-tracked tornadoes.  Since we were a little early, we drove through the Big Lake Wildlife Management Area on the way down in northeast Arkansas looking for wildlife photo opportunities.  The place was lacking much wildlife this day, so back to the road toward our target we went.

As we neared Jonesboro, we noticed some storm cells to the southwest of Little Rock, Arkansas developing and gaining intensity.  As we watched them on radar, we made the decision to continue through Jonesboro and head down to I-40 and move west toward these cells.  The lead cell developed a large hook and became tornado warned as it headed into the west side of Little Rock.  A large tornado was then reported on the ground.

We set our intercept path to the northeast of Little Rock in the suburb of Jacksonville, Arkansas.  As we made our way through the back roads northward toward our intercept point, the forested area only allowed for a rare, brief glimpse of the storm as it moved toward us.  When we arrived in Jacksonville, we found a big parking lot that finally gave us our view to the west.  What we saw was the tornado coming toward us.  A few indecisive minutes went by as we watched to determined if we were out of its path.  The tornado would slip by just to the south keeping us out of the way of the debris that was rotating around it.

The tornado was not as strong as it was on the west side of Little Rock, but was still pulling up debris and spinning it around its rotation.  We attempted to follow it, but storm speed, traffic, and road network did not afford us the ability to keep up with it.

We worked our way back to I-40 and headed east gaining some ground on the storms once again and watching multiple cells north and west of us.  We eventually found ourselves watching another developing tornadic cell approaching just to our northwest.  We exited I-40 at Forest City, Arkansas and headed north to intercept.  Since this area was not as heavily forested. we were able to get an occasional view and keep tabs on the approaching storm.  It was tornado warned and as we watched, the tornado came into view and transitioned into a wedge. 

It was becoming obvious that the tornado was going to make a direct hit on the town of Wynne.  We crept up to the edge of the storm as it entered the city.  As it roared into town, we let it pass and then attempted to follow the storm, but were immediately halted as there was massive debris and destruction everywhere.

Seeing the destruction, we immediately turned around and exited the area to give the first responders access without us in the way.

We back tracked to I-40 once again and continued east.  Wasn't long before we had our eye on another cell to our south.  This storm would track south of I-40 and was moving toward the Mississippi River.  We made the decision to intercept this now tornado warned storm on the Mississippi side of the river, so we crossed the Memphis, Tennessee bridge and then moved south on I-55.  The intercept point would be somewhere near Tunica, Mississippi.  We got there just before the storm, exited to drive into the Mississippi River Valley, and found a wide open spot to watch it move across the open valley as twilight began setting in.

There were reports of a stovepipe tornado firmly on the ground, but we never got a visual of it as rain curtains wrapped around it. 

As darkness set in, we called it a day and headed back to Memphis to find a restaurant to enjoy a relaxing dinner after a very hectic day.  We found a nearly empty Applebees and we ordered our meal.  After ordering, we glanced at the radar again.  "What is that aimed directly at us?"

The relaxing meal turned into a semi-rushed meal as we had to check out this final tornadic storm as it was to pass over us.  Now in complete darkness in the middle of the east Memphis suburbs, we plotted the path and waited for the storm to move right by us.  Only visible by the lightning, we positioned ourselves very close in as we watched the hook part of the storm go by.  We were able to follow the storm, but were never able to confirm any funnel lowering or tornadoes.  Ironically, this storm put down a big tornado as it moved east after we let it go.

We made the long trip back home after a very successful day.

20.5 Hours  -  1078 Miles

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