A higher-end event looked like it was taking shape across the southeast less than two weeks before Christmas. This would be one of my first December chases, and one of the latest BIG chases, I’d have in the year. Ed Grubb and I met at Denver Airport Sunday evening to catch a flight into Dallas to get us set up for the big day that was to come on Tuesday.
Once we retrieved our bags and our rental, we took off out of the Metroplex and got situated overnight in Rowlett, northeast of Dallas where we grabbed some shut-eye. The following morning, we set up as our target area was going to be Shreveport, about 3 hours drive.
It was a short drive to Shreveport where we got bunked down for the evening. I was to do a few setup live shots upon our arrival for AccuWeather to set up the chase ahead.
After work, we got checked in to our hotel, and wouldn’t you know it, every other chaser was down here as well!
The next morning as we were loading up to hit the road, we ran into another one of our AccuWeather reporters, Jillian, along with her partner, Connor. We had a quick bite and chat before we all headed out to get set up for the day.
Our first storm intercept of the afternoon was a rather benign storm near Winona that we caught off I-20 about halfway back to where we started the previous day. It was mostly a rainer with a bit of a breeze, but more storms organizing to our south were going to be our big play.
We cruised back south and east to get set up for our next intercept. We ventured over to the town of Deberry, Texas on a tornadic cell. Terrain here was horrible, and our best option was an open dirt lot that we were able to make out the intense circulation of a large tornado we could only see the top half of. Our first ever December tornado.
That storm moved mostly east, crossing US-79 and leaving us in the dust. We eyeballed the next cell to the south, cutting back down on 79 and eventually eastbound on Route 123 toward the state line. Ed was buried deep in Google maps trying to find a field or opening on the satellite maps so we could get a view of the storm. We dropped south on LA-169 out of Four Forks, trying to beat the storm to LA-172 as it was racing up from the south. As I drove, Ed scanned the area for open spaces and found one just east of the intersection of LA-169 and LA-172. We planted there, watching to our west, then to our north when we got a view of what would be our first ever Louisiana tornado, and our second twister of the day.
Major kudos to Ed for finding such a great viewing location. We had quite the view, and one of the only people to see this tornado so clearly. While we had about a minute’s worth of view, the tornado, moving quickly northeast, shrouded in the precip and we could no longer see the tornado. With the storm heading straight for Shreveport, we hopped through Keachi via LA-5 to US-171 and flew north to try and meet this thing on the south side of Shreveport. With no view, our live reports were warning folks that a possible rain-wrapped tornado was heading for the city. We had confirmed the large tornado on this cell earlier, but could not see whether it was still on the ground. Fortunately, the tornado had lifted prior to Shreveport, so a huge disaster was averted there.
We continued the chase, eventually working our way out east via I-20. Another, higher-end setup, awaited us the following day in Mississippi, so as darkness fell, we wrapped up the chase and headed over to Pearl, Mississippi for the night.
