There was a slight risk of storms from the Gulf Coast of Texas/Lousiana to central Iowa. This however was not a scheduled chase day. I was pretty tired from the previous day's chase into central Oklahoma, but i wasnt too impressed with the setup and i didnt anticipate it being worth it to get out

I was sleeping still at 2pm when James Hudzinski (the weekend weather anchor for channel 5) called me asking me where i was. I told him i was sleeping and he then berated me on why when there were storms. So i got up and looked at everything and i still wasnt very impressed. The storms were small and were already 1 hour east of me. I was about to go back to sleep with Garrett Lewis called telling me there was a Tornado Warning for Franklin County and why wasnt i out there. I finally decided to head out and at about 230pm i left and headed east.

I could see the storms pretty quickly and the whole way there i was thinking about turning back and getting back to sleep. I couldnt quite talk myself into it so i continued on. Garrett called to let me know there was a report of a funnel cloud north of Ozark near their city lake. By the time i got to Ozark the storm that produced the funnel cloud had diminshed and headed into the mountains but luckily other storms had fired up to my south and a quick shot east would have me in good location.

I only got as far as Altus (a few miles east of Ozark) before it started hailing. The bigger sized ones were nearly quarter size.

Altus Hail Video

After seeing nothing of interest from the top of Altus' Mount St. Mary we headed east again to try and intercept other storms south.

We continued on Hwy 64 east to State Hwy 194 and then south on State Hwy 109. We continued down 109 until we were on the hill overlooking the Arkansas River and the bridge over it. It was a great view point. Soon the storms that were to out our southwest began to come into view. We could clearly see a wall cloud forming.

450pm

The storm continued toward us and became better organized.

500pm

Soon the storm was right in front of us and the wall cloud continued to become better organized and cloud motion increased and lowered.

510pm

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The storm continued to head slowly our direction and the storm began to weaken.

All in all not that bad of a day for a totally unplanned chase.