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By Derek Deroche, February 26, 2009 10:33 pm

Returning from a trip to New Orleans, Katie Burtis and I departed Fort Smith, AR targeting an area from Joplin, MO to Nevada, MO. Met up with Blair and Leighton in Nevada as weak convection developed across northern into central MO. We decided to target the southern edge of convection which seemed to be located within the northern surge of theta e advection and the southern portion of the weaker inhibition. We headed east on Hwy 54 to just east of El Dorado Springs, MO observing decent low level structure and a pseudo fault region. We took Hwy 13 south and intercepted the storm as it crossed between Collins and Humansville. We observed 0.5” to 0.88” hail with a few as large as 1” in diameter as the core overtook our position. We left the storm thereafter, unwilling to fight the darkness and increasingly poor terrain.

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By Derek Deroche, February 10, 2009 10:53 pm

With an unexpected early initiation, got a late start on the day and missed the central OK action. Blair and I eventually made it to the KS/OK border in an attempt to either intercept the long lived supercell moving out of central OK or any additional convection that may form on the leading edge of the theta e surge. We finally met up with the Gutherie, OK supercell as it neared Pawnee, OK. Around 5:30 pm, we stopped just south of Pawhuska, OK on Hwy99 and watched as the updraft base became visible. Decent mid-level (with some weak low-level) rotation briefly became evident within the notch region. Thereafter, the storm seemed to struggle as we followed it north of Bartlesville, OK where we encountered 1.5″ hail.