April 20, 2025 (Click on images to enlarge them)
Easter Sunday and a chase day. What do we do? Attend the Easter family function or take a chance at a tornado? Luckily, my wife was understanding and gave the go-ahead for my son Ryan and I to make it a storm day.
The Storm Prediction Center put out an enhanced risk of storms with a 10% hatched area for tornadoes.
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The storms were forecasted to initiate in the mid afternoon, so my son Ryan and I got on the road around 11:00am. Image our surprise to already have a Tornado Warned Storm appear on the radar screen out in the Missouri Ozarks as we begin our trip.
As we continued westward on Interstate 70, the misty, foggy type atmosphere let us know we were on the north side of the warm front to our south. The question was, will this storm continue to stay in the warm air mass or cross over that boundary and die? As the Tornado Warning continued to be reissued as the storm moved northeast, we set our sights on an intercept.
At Kingdom City, Missouri, we headed south on Highway 54 all the way down to Jefferson City, Missouri. We were hearing the storm had a confirmed Tornado on its path. We found an open area on the north side of the Missouri River flood plain as the storm came over us with some minor rotation, but it was definitely inbetween cycles and showed no apparent signs of being close to a spinup.
As the storm passed, we got on Highway 54 back north. We were fortunate as the highway paralleled the storm. As we watched the radar as we traveled northeastward with the storm, Ryan noticed a dramatic uptick in the velocity on radar. When he looked back out of the window, he sees a Tornado firmly on the ground. He quickly demands me to stop the car.
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Unfortunately for us, in the short time it took us to pull over out of the way of traffic, our view of the base of the Tornado was obstructed by trees. The Tornado weakened very quickly as it moved behind the treeline.
We continued driving alongside of the storm northeastward on Highway 54 as it crossed over Interstate 70 hoping for a repeat performance. That never happened and shortly after crossing over the interstate, it outran the warm air and began dying on the cool side of the boundary.
We backtracked again to Kingdom City and waited for a couple hours to see if the storms further out to the west would become productive. As the storms neared, it became obvious that any spinups would be wrapped in rain, so we made the decision to drive back home in front of the advancing squall line.
I had emailed the National Weather Service the location and pictures of the Tornado as there were no Tornado reports listed for this storm. Found out later they would be doing a survey. Their final findings indicated an EF2 Tornado occurred. This storm was Tornado warned continuously for over 2.5 hours. Quite unusual to be an hour and a half drive-time away when a storm goes Tornado warned and still get there in time to score a Tornado.
| Our Trip |
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8 Hours - 306
Miles
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Summary 2025 Page |
Storm Index Page |