A high risk for severe thunderstorms and long-tracked tornadoes existed for much of central and eastern Arkansas the afternoon of May 1st, 2010. I went down there to chase this event. When storms started firing, there were lots of them, most ended up tornado-warned. Folks were anticipating the worst. But in the end, very few tornadoes were produced.
Here’s my account of the chase and a bit about why so few tornadoes occurred on this day despite much anticipation.
We drove down via Willow Springs, MO to see the damage caused by an EF1 tornado Friday evening. The Hillbilly Junction sustained roof damage as did an antique store just up a hill and to the east. This was the last of five tornadoes produced by a supercell which started in Boone County, Arkansas.
We were a caravan of three with Dustin Elkins and Bo Hessee also driving. We eventually wove our way down to White Hall which is just north of Pine Bluff. Here, other chaser friends of ours had gathered including Dena Sanders and Brian DePriest. The Tornado Intercept Vehicle (TIV) was there as were other chasers.
Boundary Moving Slowing North This Day
Of much interest early on was the very obvious boundary visible on radar stretching WSW/ENE south of Little Rock. It was thought that this boundary would be able to supply more focused and localized storm relative helicity to storms forming along it. Indeed several storms west of Little Rock did appear to have an increase in rotation while crossing this boundary. But the storm motion was taking them across and not along this feature. If a storm could have traveled along it, it might have produced the longer-track type of tornado which was feared on this day.
Storms became very numerous in southern Arkansas by the 6 o’clock hour. In fact, too numerous really. It became difficult to know which storm to chase! We initially decided to get northeast of the Arkansas River toward the flat rice lands in and around Stutgartt. But as supercells became tornado-warned in southern Arkansas, we decided to change the plan, back track a bit and try to get one of the southern storms. While on the way, storms started firing north and south of Pine Bluff which eventually became tornado-warned. The decision of the day was to not chase these storms and instead press on to the most southeast of all of the supercells which was going to cross highway 65 near Gould, AR. The reasons we didn’t pursue the Pine Bluff storms were 1) we would have to travel back through the city of Pine Bluff, 2) the river crossing were limited and 3) there was too much rain, drizzle and just plain bad visibility east of these storms.
Radar Image w/Mesocyclone Indicator at 7:46 pm
So, on down highway 65 we traveled. We were racing against dark really. We got into position ahead of the well defined cell which had a great hook echo. One more adjustment southeast to Gould was required due to the slight right turn the storm (and many supercells) started to take.
We saw some great formations and a likely wall cloud but as the storm passed just to our west, no tornado ever formed. Reed Timmer and the Dominator crew was coming though Gould and we followed them briefly north chasing the same storm but eventually the chase was abandoned.
I’m waiting on the archived SPC data for this day to appear but I suspect that the reason more tornadoes were not generated on this day were due to low values of low level rotation and generally weaker than needed low level winds.
I am compiled a video log of the chase which should be finished by Thursday.
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