February 4-5, 2008 Chase

Well, Chris Bishop and I were planning on going to Tahlequah to skate a visit my Family, and there was a chance for storms late that night, so it was going to be a good day. We skated a few spots, then went to my Dads to hang out and wait for storms to fire up. Fell asleep, and my little sister woke us up when she was leaving for school. I woke up to see the SPCs first high risk of the year, with an emphasis on long-track tornadoes. So I ask Chris if he's ready to go on his first nader chase and sit on his ass for 14 hours straight. We decided to go for it, and we head out to Little Rock at 8:30 am. I called Randy Rhea and Hagy to see if they were in, and they jumped in the car and headed out from Edmond. We met in Ft. Smith and kept East to Little Rock. Randy Hicks called and said he was heading South of of Little Rock to catch a TORwarned cell near Hamburg. We decided to break south as well, but the storms were too fast, so we decided to catch another. On our way there, we caught a mini-SUP. It was weak, but it was rotating. We get a view of out target cell and she's a beauty. Very broad updraft base with precip around the wall cloud. Follow it as far as possible, but road options SUCKED. So we headed North to catch a new cell going up near Pine Bluff. We set up 5 miles S of Stuttgart, and watch it come in around dark. AMAZING anvil crawler lightning. It just so happens that a few cells were going up behind it, which would make for a good chase. I believe were were watching 2 wall clouds to the SW and W, with rain-wrapped power flashed to the North. All at one time. The rain-wrapped power flashes were caused by a tornado near the Stuttgart airport. We headed north after our cell to the west went TORwarned. In the distance we could see the possible tornado, with the Meso of our storm wrapping up very nicely, very close to us. It never did much and we let it fly away, and we headed towards 40 to head home, and we punched the core of another cell, and Headed W to position for the Squall line. We went a little North of Brinkley to watch some lowerings along the edge of the line. There was a suspicious lowering that turned into a funnel, so we went after it. I havent looked at video yet so we arent sure if anything came of it. It left us and the line hit us with 70mph winds and airborne gravel scared us South to get some subs and discuss our trip home. Pictures and video up soon.

804 miles.