Tornado near Vilonia, Arkansas

Chase Recap:

This would end up being a tough chase in the Little Rock metro area as a violent tornado tore through the suburbs and mountains.

Hitting the Road

We began the morning in Tyler, Texas. Expecting a southern bias to the day, we positioned there the night before. Our original target was somewhere near the Arkansas/Louisiana border, so getting down along I-20 made sense. The SPC had a Day 2 moderate with wording about upgrading to a high risk. Our hope was for rogue supercells in the warm sector.

We found ourselves near El Dorado in a high risk in Southern Arkansas. Multiple small cells had started firing in Northern Louisiana. The storms were still just small echos on radar, and would remain that way as they seemed to be having issues with capping. We would take this as a cue to get further north towards the warm front up near I-40.

Mayflower/Vilonia Arkansas Tornado

As the sun was getting low in the sky, we found ourselves just east of Little Rock on I-40. A supercell was riding the warm front, producing a violent tornado just to our west. We headed northeast on US67 through Jacksonville, and then north towards El Paso. Our play on the storm would be near El Paso. Sunset had since passed, and it was starting to get very dark.

With the damage reports coming out, and the radar presentation, we didn’t dare get very close. The terrain, foliage and road network are all very negative to seeing a tornado in that area. We stuck back at US64 and Highway 5 just south of El Paso. As the storm and tornado passed north of us, we could hear the loud grumbling roar of the tornado.

We found the first damage right away, but other chasers were checking up so we continued on looking for more. We ended up not finding any further damage, especially east of highway 5. It turns out the tornado quickly roped out shortly after crossing highway 5.

Heading to Waffle House

We headed to Waffle House in Beebe where we learned of the fatalities that occurred. After dinner, we headed to Memphis for the night to chase another high end severe weather day in Mississippi.