I’ve been officially chasing storms since 2016, 4 years and have seen 3 major supercells. That was last year on March 24, 2019, this year May 4, 2020, and now June 27, 2020. That says a lot. Storm chasing is definitely not easy. I have a lot of friends who travel hundreds of miles just to see 5 or 10 minutes of nature’s fury. 2020 is officially the hardest storm chasing year on record. What made it more difficult is the current pandemic going on.
June 27,2020
The morning of June 27, 2020, started out like any camping trip day. I roll out of my bunk, grab a water and my phone, and head outside to put a piece of wood on the campfire to keep the bugs away. I was aware yesterday there was a marginal risk for my area (Steelville, Missouri), so I pull up the Storm Prediction Center risks and saw a marginal risk, but no tornado risk at all. I looked at the forecast and it called for isolated thunderstorms for the afternoon and evening hours. It was definitely a struggle to get good cell service to look at the model runs, so I gave up on that. So, for the rest of the day, the family and I relaxed. My dad and I went to the pond on the campsite and did some fishing for a little while. I caught a crappie, almost two. Dad didn’t catch any, just nibbles. Dad and I decided to go up to Steelville, Missouri to get some bait, some crickets to catch more crappie. They didn’t have any, but that’s ok. We got some worms for bass fishing. After that, we headed just a little down the road to get some ice cream at the (Insert name here). Dad got a reeces concrete and a banana split and I got a cookie dough concrete. After we got the ice cream, we hopped into the truck and headed back to the campsite.
The Event
After a while, I got a text on a weather chat my friends and I created my friend, Christina Starkey showing a simulated storm on the weather models at 6:00 pm for my area. It looked interesting, so I kept an interest in it. Later, I asked my friend Calvin Thomas for an updated radar scan of the storms on radar. There was a severe warned storm that looked good, so I grabbed my camera gear and headed out to the field facing the storm. I set my camera up ready to take some lightning photos. I take a look again at the radar super-res velocity and saw broad rotation, so I grabbed my gear and ran to my dad. He was in the camper at the time getting ready to prep for dinner. When I got to the camper, I opened up the door and looked at my dad and said, “Dad, look at this storm. It’s gonna produce a tornado. I know it. I can feel it in my gut. Please take me up there!” He said ok, so we hopped into the truck and peeled out of the campsite on our way to Cuba, Missouri to have a date with a storm. When we got to Cuba, the sky looked ominous, everything was quiet, and there was no wind. Had a feeling something was not right. I was excited and a little nervous, but I knew what I was getting into. I also knew what I was doing. Dad asked me where to go, so I told him to drive to the truck stop (Midwest Petroleum Diesel Island). While we were at a red light on MO-19, I rolled down the window to give a heads up to some folks on motorcycles there’s hail and heavy rain and this storm could produce a possible tornado. They replied, “Thank you for letting us know”. The light turned green and we headed to the parking lot of the truck stop. We pulled in facing northwest. I grab my gear and set my dslr camera up to automatically take photos. The structure of this storm was beautiful. Around 5:37pm, I can start to see all the dynamics of a supercell.
First one is the wall cloud with an inflow tail.
Blink of an eye the storm was on us at we were getting strong westerlies the tornado was in front of us the rotation is tightening up then there was a tornado on the ground!
The moment is tense as the tornado is on the ground. The truck is shaking. I still had the live stream going on my photography page, Lucas Munzlinger Photography. My dad and I were seeing pieces of shingles and tree branches falling and rotating around the tornado. Then, in the blink of an eye, the moment was over and everything was calm. The tornado has passed and dissipated. After that, we headed back to camp to eat dinner.
What was the Tornado Rating?
RATING: EF-0
ESTIMATED PEAK WIND: 85 MPH
PATH LENGTH /STATUTE/: 0.8 MILES
PATH WIDTH /MAXIMUM/: 100 YARDS
START TIME: 5:42 PM
END TIME: 5:44 PM
Source:
National Weather Service St.Louis Missouri
Tornado Windspeed Ratings
EF0…WEAK……65 TO 85 MPH
EF1…WEAK……86 TO 110 MPH
EF2…STRONG….111 TO 135 MPH
EF3…STRONG….136 TO 165 MPH
EF4…VIOLENT…166 TO 200 MPH
EF5…VIOLENT…>200 MPH
source:
National Weather Service St.Louis Missouri
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