We
headed out mid day and headed south. A Tornado
Warned Storm was already working its way eastward out of
the Ozarks. We had to make a decision to either
travel down Interstate 55 or move to the Illinois side
to set up for the storms coming toward us.
We chose Interstate 55,
but regretted that decision as we continued to drive
south because we figured better viewing would be better
on the east side looking across the big Mississippi
River Valley. Luckily, we had enough time to
travel the extra 30 miles out of the way to cross into
Illinois on the Chester, Illinois bridge and work our
way back north on Bluff Road in the River Valley up to
near Fults, Illinois
We
watched the Tornado Warned Storm come toward us and
cross in front of us. We gave it plenty room as it
also was reported to have large hail.
The storm had some
lowerings, but we saw no visible Tornado.
As the
storm moved by us, we moved back to Highway 3 and drove
south to get in front of the next Tornadic Storm in the
line north of Chester, Illinois. Got in good
position to see the rotating part of the storm, but rain
was wrapping around the circulation and made the funnel
cloud barely visible.
The
storm passed us by and moved off. We gave it a try
to follow the storm, but the road network prevented us
from following the storm.
We
noticed more storms to the west, so we crossed back over
the River into Missouri. We lined up a Severe
Warned Storm with a big bow echo at Bloomsdale,
Missouri. As the storm came right to us, it had a
very picturesque roll cloud on the front side.
Once it
rolled over us, we were blasted with 70-80mph
wind. We were also very surprised to see a Tornado
Warning issued as it went right over our head. We
could see a darkened area, but nothing was visible in
the blinding rain.
There was no way to follow the storm as
it quickly moved across the River into
Illinois. We looked at the radar and there
was one more storm to the southwest.
Although the storm was not warned and only had a
small velocity marker on radar, we decided to line
it up. We once again moved south to just on
the Missouri side of the River at Chester,
Illinois. We watched it come in, but this
storm never became warned and went by us with
little fanfare.
f
May 08, 2024 
