May 26, 2024 (Click on images to enlarge them)
With the prospect of Tornadoes once again, my son Ryan and I took a chance to track one down. The Storm Prediction Center put out a Moderate Risk with a 15% hatched area for Tornadoes.
The best parameters were setting up in Southeast Missouri, so our target was Sikeston, Missouri. We traveled down Interstate 55 and made a stop in Bloomsdale, Missouri to reexamine data along with our friend Nick Pavlovits who was heading out also. The National Weather Service issued a PDS (Particularly Dangerous Situation) Tornado Watch from St. Louis southward. Decisions had to be made as there was a broken line of storms from St. Louis, Missouri all the way back to Southwest Missouri.
Now that the Watch Box included the area all the way back to St. Louis and the storm back near home were beginning to rotate, we gave some consideration for moving back north. After rethinking the whole situation and trying to figure out how to reach the storms through the horrible road network in that part of Missouri, we chose to continue down to our original target in Sikeston and then move west on Highway 60 to Poplar Bluff, Missouri as the Tornado parameters were much more primed in that area. As we continued to drive south on Interstate 55 before moving west on Highway 60, a couple of storms west of our target area became tornado warned and soon had confirmed tornadoes. We put our sights on the one west of Poplar Bluff moving east.
As we arrived in Poplar Bluff, the storm was still out to the west, so we continued through Poplar Bluff westward. When we reached the storm, the rotation had weakened.
Soon after arriving to the storm, the Tornado Warning was dropped. We drove back east through Poplar Bluff once again to stay ahead of the storm and found a spot in the flatland of the Mississippi River Valley to watch the storm roll in from the west as the day turned to night. The lightning at this point was the main attraction.
Was a very difficult chase with most of the storms moving through the hilly and heavily wooded part of the state. Then with the uncertainty of where the Tornadic Storm would be as they worked through the small area of the Mississippi River Valley made for even tougher conditions. There were many spinups during the evening with many Tornadoes only lasting a minute or two. We were not fortunate to be in a spot to catch one.
| Our
Trip |
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7 Hours - 432 Miles