Played secondary target in far northeastern OK hoping for sleeper tornado play but failed to get on base before target storm tracked into the Ozarks.
Crew and Equipment
Chase partners: Sean Casey, Chuck Haskin, Carrie Svihlik. Equipment: Sony AX100, Canon 60D with EFS 10-22, Samsung S9.
Video
Map
Details
This was the second day of a Plains run with Sean Casey, Chuck Haskin, and Carrie Svihlik in Sean Casey's Subaru intercept vehicle. We started the day in Ada, OK where we overnighted from the previous day's chase. Tornadic supercells looked likely over the Ohio River Valley, but not wanting to deal with roads and trees near the rivers, we elected to play a closer target. If we went to the eastern target, I foresaw us driving hours away from the van, only to chase high precipitation supercells, straining for a view, while passing a photogenic secondary target en route. We targeted Joplin and started making our way up through northeastern Oklahoma.
The group really, really wanted breakfast sandwiches from Buckey's, however. We wound up going another hour out of the way up to Springfield, MO, trying to make it there in time while they were still serving breakfast. I also remembered why I don't like Buckey's, beyond it being a giant tourist trap. It's not a full gas station, just a big gift store, so there's no squeegees to clean the windshield at the pumps, no car supplies that you can buy inside.
The Buc-ee's outside of Springfield, MO on Memorial Day weekend is a sight to behold, a distilled slice of Americana. Nearly every pump and toilet was in use, which was impressive given that they have dozens and dozens of each. Alas there's really nothing for me there, so I just gawked at the mobs of people and then got out.
Then Sean pulled the Subaru into a grass lot off to the side and demonstrated the vehicle's hydraulic anchor spikes, that is until staff shooed us off of the dirty, trash filled grass. I guess we weren't improving it.
The storm got away from us to the east and we made a futile effort to chase it into Arkansas, but it was pretty obvious we weren't going to get in front of it before it was over the gnarly Ozarks terrain. We called the chase, having never had a decent view of the base, and then headed back to Joplin to get my van.
Chuck, Carrie, and I headed into Springfield, MO for the night while Sean started making his way back west. We stopped at an exquisite Thai restaurant in a big Victorian house in the middle of town for dinner, which was probably the highlight of the day for me.
Then Chuck and Carrie got some icecream nearby and we called it day, what was more of a Joplin area vacation road trip than a storm chase.
Conclusion
We rolled the dice on a secondary sleeper target, probably letting convience influence us more than we should have. The primary Ohio River target wound up producing several large tornadoes, some of which were chaseable. In hindsight we should have gone for the primary, but the previous day's chase was a success and made the trip for us.
