May 8th had a lot going for it. Strong instability, good shear, high CAPE and several boundaries played into the end result. We caught several tornado warned supercell, including one near Springfield, TN that produced a cone tornado. Between slow, curving, winding roads, low speed limits and slow traffic, it made it difficult to get in front of storms. The Springfield supercell spun like crazy and produced a cone, causing damage. It took us what seemed like forever to get in front of it. As we broke through the core, we could see the cone tornado behind us in the distance. It had been on the ground over 10 minutes. As we got into a better position to see it (due to hills and trees!), it dissipated. We then blasted south to catch a supercell near Columbia, TN that showed signs of strong rotation and was tornado warned. As we approached Nashville, insane traffic slowed us down by 30 minutes. And of course the supercell produced a violent wedge tornado that became rain wrapped by the time we could get to it due to traffic. Frustrating day, but we DID see a tornado! Tennessee and Kentucky are extremely difficult to chase in!!!! Enjoy what pics we could get!
May 25th Memphis, TN Tornadic Supercell
May 25th was kind of a let down for me. After a wild day before in Oklahoma, it certainly looked like the Missouri/Arkansas/Tennessee area was in for a big day as the system continued eastward. However, after spending hours waiting for initiation in Newport, Arkansas, we headed southwest towards Little Rock as storms exploded there. Of course, 2 hours after we left a tornado occurred just west of Newport. For sure it was one of those days. We chased several tornado warned storms, but something was missing. Maybe weaker 850 winds than further north into northern Arkansas and southern Missouri where numerous tornadoes occurred? We finally captured a nicely structured supercell that dropped a brief tornado just west of Memphis, Tennessee. The last 3 photos below were taken IN MEMPHIS, looking west across the Mississippi river (which was producing major flooding at the time).
