I admit it: I”m guilty. After that last post, in which I made it plain that my mind was made up, I was going to stay put and not, nix, nada, no way chase storms, I went anyway. The RUC 13 prediction of usable CAPE working its way up into Indiana was eating at me–that, and too many past experiences of watching the action spread northeast of the weather watch areas. All it took was another phone call from Bill to tip me over the edge.
We hooked up in Nappanee, Indiana, then blasted south. The big storms fired up to the southwest, as expected, and are presently dropping tornadoes down in Tennessee and Mississippi, and presumably in Arkansas and Kentucky as well. But the daylight is long gone, and we”re heading for Louisville for the night. The storms will almost certainly catch up with us there sometime later tonight, and we could be in for a rough ride. My radar will be up and running, that much is certain.
So much for iron resolve in the face of a high risk day. Pffffttt! Ah, well…it”s better than staring at the radar screen in my apartment with fried-egg eyeballs, tearing my hair out by the handful and wishing I”d gone.
Plans now consist of the following:
1. Check into hotel
2. Go to a restaurant for a good steak and brew
3. Head back to the hotel, flip on GR2 and GR3, and watch the storms move in
That approach works for me.
Hey, hope you guys saw some action. Extreme storms in TN and AR. Louisville IL? I see there were some reports in IN of tornados but didn’t see IL having anything beyond marginally severe hail. Well, there was some potent wind gusts actually–encounter anything like this (Fayetville, IL)? 75-85 perhaps?
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8878 BARN STUCTURE OF WOOD AND STEEL COMPOSITE HEAVILY DAMAGED IN TOWN…HIGH SCHOOL GYM ROOF TOTALLY GONE….PARTS OF THE ROOF OF THE HIGH SCHOOL ITSELF ALSO RIPPED OFF… (LSX)
We overnighted by Louisville, Kentucky. Didn’t ee any tornadoes, but the line came through here, and we went out to meet it. One rogue supercell came through ahead of the squall, and that was the thing that got us out of the hotel and back out on the road. Unfortunately, due to problems with using Bill’s Sprint hookup, it took me precious minutes to get GR3 up and running, so we couldn’t track the storm. Too bad; when I got the radar running, we could see it would have been worth following, though we probably wouldn’t have been able to follow it far due to terrain and storm speed.
We wound up parking near the hotel, facing southwest, and watching the line advance. We got slammed by some very high winds and lots of rain, but nothing major. Not far to the south, though…
I’ve just flicked on TWC and hear that the death toll is at forty-six and likely to increase. This has been one bad scene, with a lot of damage throughout the South. And apparently its still ongoing as I write.