May 1, 2008 chase account

Targeted northwest Missouri along a dryline/cold front with many Iowa State classmates. My friend, Logan, was driving his Civic, which does not have the most comfortable back seat for someone even as modestly sized as myself, especially for a 650 mile trip. After driving south on I-35 to Cameron, MO, we drifted west towards the boundary near St. Joeseph while waiting for initation. Initiation occurred shortly after 5:00 PM just southwest of town, and just across the Missouri river. We were hoping we wouldn't have to get across the river to chase much due to the few number of crossings in the area. Nonetheless, once we observed initiation, we circled around, getting stuck behind a tractor on a one lane hard gravel road before finally making back down to Cameron and south to Lathrop. We turned south from town, witnessing our storm with lowerings present to the south and west. Eventually, we turned west on a county road and parked at the top of a hill. We saw the supercell with a wall cloud and possibly a funnel cloud hanging below. This is where the storm looked its best. Apparently, it had dropped a tornado briefly just before we got to the top of the hill. It died about an hour or so after this point.

Taken looking out of the back of Logan's car at the anvil of what would become our storm.
Front flank anvil mammatus. I used to think I knew what mammatus clouds signified. Then I heard some other information about them and now no longer know for sure what they mean other than possibly the presence of sinking air or turbulence in the anvil.
The best picture of the chase. Supercell updraft clearly evident with wall cloud. There is a peculiar element or two below the wall cloud which continues to make me wonder. If you zoom in on the image and look very hard below the left and right sides of the wall cloud, you can almost make out a needle funnel and a rope funnel. Perhaps this was the end of the Plattsburg tornado. See SPC reports from the day.
Zoom in a few seconds later of an RFD cut and likely funnel cloud. It never touched down.
An ominous looking cloud tag, but not a funnel.
Lathrop is just about under the very upper left tip of the "W" in "We".

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