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Tuesday looks like it could be a hoot too...seems based on the GFS, this could be fed nicely from Canada..long way out..we will see.

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Weather team,
Quite a picture you have of that tornado. I have to say it's still very dry in our area with only a couple of small rain drops from the storms today although there was quite a lightining show from the tornadic storm. Is there any real good chance for some rain in the forcast that is higher than 20%??
Thanks, Tim

TIM:
We will show Sean Wilson's video again tonight, too... of that same tornado! And Tuesday's chance may be going up just a bit!
Jamie

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Great pic and great video by Sean on the 10 o'clock weather also. I think I was close to him when I punched the hail core at I-29 and Tiffany springs tonight. At least I thought I heard he was in the area.

Here's a question for you: How come most of the TV/video footage you see of tornados there are no rain shafts or anything else to mask them (rarely anyways)? Other than the obvious because if there was rain you wouldn't get the video. I've seen on TV where wall clouds must have been at least 200-500 feet high with the tornado dropping down.

I've seen videos where all directions were clear except for the tornado itself. I thought all this time I needed to be south looking north to see them in general.

It seems like all the tornados in our area are severely masked. I think I really need to get out and chase well west of the KC area where the supercells are more defined and localized (smaller and taller)...haha.

Tonights hp supercell was pretty neat. You could see the south wall of it just before the light was totaly gone.

Thanks.

Jeff,

You have some pretty good questions. The best location to see a tornado would be just southeast of it. The problem is this also places you in the biggest danger. Rain will quite often wrap around the tornado and if you are to its west there is a chance that rain will obscure your view. When the wall cloud is lower to the ground then you know the Supercell thunderstorm is very capable of producing a tornado as it is utilizing the lower level wind shear. Although, I still would rather be west of the thunderstorm to be the safest. Once you punch through the core you will be safe as it is always moving away from you. But, many storm chasers like to get as close as they can, I am not one of them.

Be careful if you do go out chasing and keep us updated if you see anything.

Gary

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I am in Bonner Springs and the wind last night blew my shutter off of one of the windows and tore it in two and it completely exploded my daughters play house, you know those ones you get that are made of plastic and have the roof and door. Whats bad is that we were dying eggs and didn't know anything was going on until the weather radio went off with the tornado warning, it gave us 3 minutes to get into the basement. That weather radio was the best thing I ever bought after the May tornadoes several years ago.

KERI:
I am a HUGE advocate of NOAA weather radios! I am so glad to hear you have one, and it helped you stay safe! Thank you for sharing your story with us... I hope you and your family all have a wonderful Easter.
Jamie

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Thanks Gary,

I thought the the southeast was the best place also. The problem is at least here in our metro area it seems like even in that position there is heavy rain in that are in front of it.

Ideally I'd like to be more south/south east to make myself more south parallel of its track and not quite so close where I could see it more defined. If I was gathering data then yes, like you said it would be another story.

last night I think we were right under the general area of the rotation in the parkville and platte woods area. From a distance as it moved east I thought I could see a funnel, but not any where near the ground. They seem to hop skip through the KC area all the time.

Thanks for the reply.

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Greetings - I chased back in the 80s and 90s, and I learned, from NSSL chasers then, that the best place to intercept a storm from is to its south and east, as the clear skies to the west afford the clearest view. This applies a lot to LP stuff, but HP stuff can be more problematic, and dangerous, as when the tornado wraps precip around it, it creates "the Bears Cage". I, as a chaser, never liked to go into that cage, nor did I when I was driving. I did so once with a gung-ho and foolish chaser, and it was nerve-wracking entering that wall of water, hail, and horizontal wind (60-70 mph), until we came out in an eerie calm beneath inky-black, undulating and circulating cloud. Tendrils of moisture condensed with such a suddeness that they appeared to materialize, twirling and dissolving and so on.

However, staying southeast of the meso, and just from under its outer edge, with escape routes handy to the south or east, remaining on paved roads, and understanding the vector of the storm, along with the fact that a right turner could take a storm moving by you, towards you, should be a better, conservative approach. Even then, it is still potentially deadly. I could have been killed on at least 3-4 occasions, even though I followed my "conservative" chase rules.

It takes a lot of years and experience to do chasing correctly, and with the price of gas today, the cost must be astronomical, compared to what I incurred back then.

BTW, not surprisingly, the storms went north and south of Blue Springs last night. Dry, dry, dry...

Later,
Dog

DOG:
I always love reading your storm accounts! Sorry you missed out AGAIN!!!!! We did at my house, too...
Jamie

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Hey weather team you all did a great job last night tracking the storms and letting us know what's going on. Thanks! :)
Rachel K.

RACHEL:
Thank you so much... it was a busy night, that's for sure! :)
Jamie

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I agree, weather radios are great to have. I have a Midland weather radio with SAME(Specific Area Message Encoding) technology. What that means is you can program the radio to only go off when your county is under a watch/warning. That way you won't get woken up at night for a storm that isn't even in your area. It's great to have. I was reading the latest hazard outlook for the area concerning Tuesday and they said the cold front will be in Eastern MO by midnight so it looks like a fast mover. So if we do see any severe weather, maybe it will be out of the area quickly. At any rate, I will have my weather radio on and ready in case anything does happen.

JUSTIN:
It is great to hear you have a weather radio, too! A lot of people don't even know what they are! But they really can save your life... I have seen it first-hand.
Jamie

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Hey Dog,

Thanks for the verification. I've been 'trying' to chase since I was a kid.

Last year or the year before (I can't remember now) I got caught in front of the Platte City TV. Luckily it hopped the car and I escaped barely--hehe. I think Sean caught some good pics of that one.

I remember it well because as I was going North on I-29 past the approach end of KCI's RWY 19R I saw an Air Canada CRJ (Slow J) and Channel 9's helo (Johnny R) go over me at the same time. I had someone on the TV watching the radar, but when I got inbetween Platte City and Weston is where I got caught up and in front of it. There was major rain and wind and a small bit of debree. We got lucky. I think that was also the day where the Riverside TV went through because we couldn't decide which one to chase. There were too many at that time (grins). By the time I got back on 45 HWY in Parkville, we knew it was coming so we traveled to I-29 from there and went south. I then saw a funnel drop but not touch in my rear view mirror in the Barry road area. It was a chasers delight.

I will be at the Riverside NWS class this Thursday to go ahead and make it official for me.

Bottom line though, a lap top with a good weather proggy and a cell or sat hookup would be ideal.

Take care.