Storm Chasing 4
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This was one of the better chases I have gone on. We didn't see any tornadoes, but we were positioned correctly to see one. The chase took place on April 30, 2003. We left Ames, IA around 1:15 in the afternoon and headed south on interstate 35. As we went south, the skies cleared off. This was an indication that the front was nearly overhead. Thus, we decided to head west along the front into southwest Iowa on highway 2. After awhile skies clouded up again and we had an indication by some RUC model data that the severe weather would break out in northwest Missouri, so we headed south into the state. As we did this, we noticed towering cumulus clouds building all around us. As we crossed the border into Missouri, we heard a warning was issued for extreme northwest Missouri. We decided to position ourselves on the south side of this storm and we ended up in Maryville, Missouri. This is where we saw our first wall cloud. It was unorganized, but we noticed some rotation. We then headed south out of Maryville on word that another storm had formed, and about 5 miles
south of Maryville, we saw a very well defined wall cloud, and just some dirt swirls on the ground. No tornadoes formed. We tracked this storm across northern Missouri, through Bethany, and into Mt. Aire. The storm was a classic supercell, but as time expired, it became engulfed in rain and it was impossible to spot a tornado with the wall cloud. There was a reported tornado about 5-8 miles north of our position, but it was in the rain band. When we reached Mt. Aire, we ended our chase due to darkness and went back westward to Bethany to grab a bite to eat. This is when we saw our first hail of the day. But we were protected by the gas station roof. Overall, this chase went very well, and we were in the perfect position and we had this all planned ahead of time. It was a great chase.
Wall cloud Number 1
Wall cloud number 2