Chris and Kim went storm chasing!

Saturday, Deb and I were going out of town. Kim and Chris were going to go with us, but woke up feeling "bad" and didn't want to go. I had already seen that it was going to be a stormy day south of us, and could see right through them. I said fine, Deb and I will go. We hadn't been on the road 30 minutes, and the pleading to go chasing started. We relented, so off they went in Kims vehicle.

They first went to Cairo, then decided to drop into the bootheel of Missouri. After a Sikeston stop, they had a decision to make. Were they going to sit, go west, or South into Arkansas. Chris made the decision to go to Jonesburo Arkansas, some storms were big and heading there. They got there just before the storm hit, and happened to meet up with a SKywarn chaser, a couple of police officers, a fire chief, and a TV mobile weather crew. They were near the interstate, at an overpass, and were directed by the officer to go under the overpass. All of Chris's training knew this was the worst place to be. The officer, chaser and fire chief were very grateful that the kids had laptop moving radar, and looked closely at it to decide where the tornado was going. (it had been warned for a while already). That was when the officer directed them under the overpass. Chis was driving, and basically ignored him, went to the top of the overpass, and started to go down the ramp to intercept, lights flashing. Kim realized he was going the wrong way, and was going to drive in it. After a brief screaming match, Chris realized he was going west instead of east, did a u-turn and went the wrong way up the ramp and took off east. Kim got some pictures of the wall cloud, and the tornado, unfortunately a clear condensation funnel is not visible. A clear debris cloud is though. SO Chris and his Midscar team has their first intercept. They stayed overnight in Arkansas and then drove home today. When they got home I told them if they had been honest about what they were doing, I would have left the video camera for them, and could have had some great pics of the rotation. Live and learn, they did learn a lot, and hope to be better prepared next time!