Late Night Severe Weather

Last night, a band of thunderstorms associated with a meso-low located in the NW Gulf of Mexico made its presence known along the coast of South Louisiana. This along with a conducive thermodynamic environment (temps ~73, dewpoints ~70, CAPE ~1800, decent lapse rates, and an LCL ~600m) allowed these thunderstorm's to flourish even with the absence of diurnal heating. One particular cell embedded in this band went supercellular around 1:35am prompting a tornado warning from the NWS office in Lake Charles. This continued a trend that was set earlier in the day when a discrete supercell apparently produced a tornado (not confirmed) in the Slidell CWA. This warning was allowed to expire, as the coupling never really got it's act together. However, tree and powerline damage was reported about two miles south of Kaplan along Highway 35.

Another Successful Chase

I departed Monroe, LA with Cooper, Clay and Legendre at 9:00am for another high risk chase in Dixie Alley. On this day, we anticipated that there would be another substantial severe weather outbreak across eastern Arkansas for the second day in a row. Our reasoning was due to a strong, slow moving upper level through, models showing a secondary surface low developing, and a capping inversion in the morning sounding from LZK that would control convection and allow the atmosphere to clear and destabilize throughout the day. With all of this in mind, we decided to initially target Stuttgart, Arkansas.

On our way to Stuttgart, we core punched two strengthening thunderstorms that formed in the weakly capped environment of extreme southeast Arkansas. These cells eventually went severe and were warned on by the NWS in Little Rock. Torrential rainfall and brief gusty winds were encountered, but nothing severe during the time of core punching. Shortly thereafter, skies cleared and we began to notice extensive convection taking place and quickly subsiding due to the strong shear aloft and the cap that was present.

This would be the trend for much of the afternoon. After spending most of the afternoon in Stuttgart meeting Randy “The Outlaw” Hicks (Member of the Outlaw Chasers) and watching additional chasers converge on the town via spotternetwork, we decided to adjust our game plan and move west to the small town of Humnoke. There, we met John Sibely, Brett Adair and Brandon Thomas; chasers associated with Severe Studios and Chaser TV.

Finally, at 6:00pm, things began to pop around the Arkansas/Louisiana border. Six o’clock magic at its finest. After quickly forming a game plan, my team, and our new friends decided to form a convoy and charge south down State Highway 13 toward Pine Bluff, AR to intercept rapidly developing storms. We intercepted two brief torndaoes on I-530 right outside of Pine Bluff Arkanasas. Later on in the chase, we intercepted a third brief tornado as it crossed the road on our convoy. Finally, as night fell across Arkansas, we chased the storm that eventually dropped a tornado on the northside of Memphis capturing dramatic videos of lightning and a lightning illuminated wall cloud associated with the storm before giving up the chase around Marvell, AR.

In all, we observed 3 brief tornadoes, 5 wall clouds, and an additional 3 funnel clouds, thus making this an extremely successful chase on a day that was technically a “high risk bust”.