Start: Webb City, MO/Lunch: Arbys in Sullivan, MO/End: Valley Park, MO/521 miles
SPC MD Missouri 11:56 a.m. CDT
SPC MD south of STL 1:44 p.m. CDT
The atmosphere looked primed, again, to give storm chasers a big tornado day. SPC showed a double-hatched 15% tornado risk area along the Mississippi River. And, SPC had high-end wording like “strong and intense.” The big tornado day failed to materialize, which is good as a number of large cities were quite vulnerable.
I was not that enthused about chasing big tornadoes through the forests of Missouri and traffic-clogged Saint Louis. We were straddling a boundary that was a bit south of the city. The first tornado-warned storm was near St. Louis, and we tried to get in front of it on the Illinois side. The cell looked pretty good for a few minutes (see image above) and then quickly left us in the wet dust as it moved to the northeast. I was struggling with the unfamiliar road network and the friendly neighborhoods of East Saint Louis. We were not able to find a decent spot to stop and watch this one.
Still, the day was young. The prospects for tornadic supercells looked decent. I decided to wait on the Illinois side of the river for something to come out of Missouri. The chase terrain is better on this side, right? We first killed time at an old covered bridge, and then finally had something coming at us, southwest of Waterloo, IL. It was tornado-warned as it neared! But it looked exceedingly blah and unorganized. It quickly moved overhead and east of us with little fanfare. I was ready for dinner, and we found an eatery in Waterloo. The owner provided a tour of the catacombs beneath the structure.
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