WCBI/MSU Storm Chase Day 1 Recap

COLUMBUS, Mississippi (WCBI) – Chief Meteorologist Isaac Williams and Dr. Barrett Gutter set out Monday on the annual field course “Severe Storms Methods” through Mississippi State University.

From Starvkille, we took Highway 25 to Jackson and then I-55 south to Hammond, Louisiana. We then turned west and went down I-12/I-10, reaching Lake Charles shortly after noon. This area was in a level 3/5 “enhanced” risk from the Storm Prediction Center.

Storms developed in far southeast Texas and began strengthening closer to 3 PM. They crossed into Louisiana, becoming severe with damaging wind & hail potential.

We observed a shelf cloud with evolving storms to our west, and the above picture shows some scud clouds hanging down from the cloud base. This can often “trick” people into thinking tornadoes are present, but these clouds are just low-hanging and were not rotating.

The storms then began interacting with a nearby warm front around 4 PM. In the above image, we were just southeast of a tornado-warned storm with a rotating wall cloud in view. Rotation became more evident, and tornado warnings were issued for subsequent hours as storms coalesced and surged eastward, paralleling I-10.

The above image is a well-defined shelf cloud to the west of our position. Radar was estimating winds of 100mph or higher, and this storm wound up producing two tornadoes…one in Sulphur, LA, and the other in Westlake to near downtown Lake Charles, LA.