APRIL 23rd
East of Mansfield, LA
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PANORAMA'S
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image from Sony TRV-900 miniDV panned with VideoBrush Panoram
Normally I don't try to chase in east Texas much less Louisiana due to poor visibility but this system was just too strong to pass up. Also I don't work Sunday night's so this was like my Friday. I got home from work and slept from around 7am 'til 11:00. One look at the data and I started getting ready. The upper low was moving across northern Oklahoma with associated surface low just north of OKC moving SE towards ARKLATEX. When I got up at 11am the dryline had passed and was over Dallas moving east with a narrow band of 60F + dewpoints spreading north ahead of it. Goes derived soundings showed the CAPE around 4000j/kg east of Dallas. The 250mb jet axis was just south of DFW diving ESE through LA. A check of visible satellite showed developing TCU along the dryline. Just before leaving a PDS tornado watch was issued for SE Ok/NE TX in my target zone. My target had been Shreveport but better moisture convergence convinced me to go towards Texarkanna so I took interstate 30 out of Dallas. The best storm at that time was east of Greenville moving NE at 35. After core-punching this storm I heard Sam Barricklow, Carson Eads/Tim Marshall, and Nathan (N5REL) from Sulphur Springs behind me. Sam had already obtained info that the southern storm had a meso and the rest of the group were dropping south. It was obvious that unless I wanted to core-punch all day I had to drop south and get on tail-end-charlie. I gassed-up at New Boston and headed south on hwy 8 to Douglassville where tree damage had occured. I proceeded SE down hwy 77 to Atlanta and on to Vivian, LA on hwy 1, where a rain-wrapped tornado had caused widespread F0/F1 damage. Mostly trees and power lines, which were across the road and had to be navigated carefully. By this time I had caught up with Sam and we stayed close the rest of the day. Now there were tornado warning for Shreveport ahead of us. This storm went across the south side of town and we realized we couldn't out-flank it. Now there was another tail-end storm further SW so we took I49 SE. Still we ended up having to core-punch or see nothing. Carson and Tim were in the lead and while trying to get fuel at Mansfield, LA lost their windshield to a baseball, then before they could pump any gas had a tornado develop right over them. Meanwhile I approached a complete traffic jam from people parking under a bridge. they had things backed up for a quarter mile. Since I couldn't go on I wasn't planning on getting wasted by the approaching larger hail so I used the shoulder and dove my car into the center median grass and under the bridge. (Please don't stop under a bridge unless you can safely pull off on the shoulder. If the slots are taken MOVE ON!. IF a tornado would have moved through at that bridge dozens could have died or been injured). As Sam approached and finally made it through I carefully made it back onto the highway and we moved on, punching through intense rain and small hail. As the rain let up the hail got sparser but bigger. I took a couple of golfballs but that's all. Now we could see cloud definition to our SW and soon a lowering and rotation through the trees. Then a tornado touched down just west of the road to our SW. I grabbed the camcorder and drove with one hand and shot blindly out the passenger window with the other. (In watching the tape, I also answered Sam on the radio during this time. Can't remember how I did that, having only 2 hands). Then I looked over my shoulder and saw a funnel half-way down behind me. We drove just out of harms way and stopped. Looking north there was a large marry-go-round wall-cloud moving over the highway with a hose through the trees on the west side of it. The all at once, condensation appeared on the eastern edge of the highway. Though this was only a brief spinnup it quickly broke down into multiple vortices before breaking up. As the wall-cloud moved on I could see several brief tornado's touch down and incredible RFD motion as the clear-slot push out to the east. We ended the day just a bit further south watching the storm move off with Carson and Tim and their busted windshield. We all reviewed our catches at Denney's back in Shreveport before the long drive back to DFW. Total round trip = 620 miles Total tornado's = 4+ No better way to spend Easter!