4-30-03 Northern Missouri Chase

Chase log and photos by Melanie Metz and Peggy Willenberg

From strongly rotating meso....

To shelf cloud

Peggy's checking the dewpoint.. in the 60's!! YES!!

Time to WAIT at 2:30pm in Conception Jct., MO on the boundary (warm front) with a growing Cu field

An MD is issued for this area! Bill's excited..

and so is Melanie

Finally, towers go up..

and we have cows!

The wall cloud we've been waiting for

becomes hidden as we pass through Maryville, MO

Ahhh.. there it is

We get under the meso

The meso passes over so we get a different view from the West looking East.

Very nice

We come out of the quarter to possible golf ball sized hail and view the wall cloud from the East looking West again as it tightens, lowers, and rotation increases

Continues to rotate

Passes just barely to our North

continues East with the right moving cell near Ravenwood, MO

We feel a little safer now

We drive through more hail and finally get a chance to set up the tripod just West of the strongly rotating meso

We forgot to look up!!!

A very rapidly rotating rope finnel is directly over our heads near Gentry, MO on CR O. This is the view from below, looking up and realizing there's no time to film on the tripod, it's time to MOVE... south on Hwy 169

There's Roger Hill, always on the best storm!

Shelf cloud developing

Now we are driving East on Hwy 136 just South of the cell. A tornado warning is issued 5 miles to our North. Here is the "look alike" that we saw. But no tornado seen from our location.

Beautiful view of the shelf cloud as we get SE of the storm

Now we are looking directly North on CR D towards Martinsville, MO as a tornado touchdown is reported. We still do not see a tornado.

The sun gets lower creating a piece of art in the sky

Tornado warning is re-issued for this "strongly rotating storm" as a new wall cloud tries to develop.

Turbulant sky

Deceiving scud against the setting sun

Precip core

More deceiving scud that "emerged" from the precip and rose into an updraft

Gorgeous colors, especially on this camera!

Stormy Missouri sky

Lightning was so close it was hard to capture any CG's

Driving through heavy hail again trying to go West to I-35 to get home. The hail fog makes driving difficult so we pull over.

What a GREAT chase!! And the drive home is only 5 hours.