Storm Chase Details
Chase Date: April 5, 2010
Miles Logged: 336
States Chased: IA, MO, IL
Severe Risks: SPC Outlooks
Chase Recap:
After spending the night at Hotel Risley (thanks Jesse!) and starting our day off right with a bacon eggs and toast breakfast, we hit the road out of Macomb, IL westbound with an initial target of Bethany, MO. Adam Lucio was driving his Expedition, Jesse Risley, Brandon Sullivan and Ryan Wichman were in Jesse’s Impala.
I started off right away having internet and technology issues, which ended up being centralized to Illinois. I thought I was picking up where I had left off the night before with my internet issues. Once we crossed the Mississippi River into Iowa, things started working again and I had a stream going all the way from Keokuk, IA until we got to Unionville, MO where we stopped for gas and eventually for lunch.
L.B. LaForce and his dad Bill met up with us in Unionville at the subway. We checked data and decided to take a short jog towards Kirksville as the better parameters were showing up on mesoanalysis towards our southeast, and the capping was significant on the 18Z Topeka, KS sounding. We stopped in Kirksville momentarily, and then decided to drop south another 30 miles to Macon, MO.
We sat in Macon for awhile, and then started to see the beginnings of development and a Mesoscale discussion from the SPC. This lured us back north again to Kirksville where we stopped off at McDonalds for awhile. Jesse and Brandon and Ryan decided to head home, and Adam, L.B. and I decided to head west towards Bethany and get a hotel and setup for the night.
While we were heading west, cells started popping in northeast Kansas, so we aborted the Bethany mission and decided to target near Oregon, MO and more precisely, Falls City, NE. We hauled down some back roads working our way west to I-35 and then eventually to I-29 getting on just north of St Joseph, MO. We drove up to the Falls City, NE exit before stopping at a gas station and meeting up with Steve Polley.
Scott Bennett eventually came down and met up with us and we all headed to St. Joe to eat at IHop and to get a room at the Days Inn. The motel kind of sucked, but it did have Central A/C which was decent.
