1-5-08 Nashville Severe Wx

After a high risk day in which I thought I wasn't going to see see more than a rain drop, I finally got a little show in Nashville around 9:30. Unfortunately I did not have a vehicle to chase in so I was stuck watching the show from my 6th floor hotel room in downtown. It would have been a good place to see the storm come through except for the fact that when downtown went under a tornado warning all guests were evacuated to the basement.

Reflectivity at 9:15

Velocity at 9:15

Above are the last radar images I was able to capture before I was forced to the basement. With a direct path toward downtown I wasn't completely disappointed to get off the 6th floor. The storm did have a tornado on the ground during this radar scan but the storm weakened as it approached downtown Nashville and was not producing a tornado by the time it reached me. According to local news the cell got reorganized and droped another tornado east of town.

Above is a video capture of lightning as the storm moved over downtown. (left a camera running in the window when I was sent to the basement) I haven't had a chance to review the entire video due to work constraints but I'll try to get a clip put up here soon if there is anything worth posting.

Needless to say it was disappointing to be in the middle of a high risk area all day and not be able to chase. I was really hoping that storms would form earlier in the day so that at least we could get in on the action as we drove from Tulsa to Nashville. We were in all the right spots through the day. We stoped in Conway, AR for lunch which I hear later got nailed by a tornado, and later in the day we stopped in Jackson, TN for a while before it sustained major damage by the tornado warned storm that tracked over downtown Nashville.