Vilonia Radar Images

I think most of you can see the hook in the storm as the tornado was coming into Vilonia. Click the image to enlarge. This was a massive tornado and at this point, we had confirmation that it was on the ground doing damage. In fact, look at the purple areas in the "ball" of the hook. That is debris from the tornado. Since this was so close to the radar site, the angle of the radar beam was about 700 feet above the ground. Seeing a debris signature from storms far away from a radar site is almost impossible. The void spot north of that ball is the inflow around the counter-clockwise circulation of the tornado. Notice how it wraps over and around the circulation, forming the hook signature. This next image is what I tweeted before it hit Vilonia...

This is the wind velocity image. The bright reds are winds moving away from the Little Rock radar site. The bright greens are winds moving toward the radar site. Can you see the rotation? Here's the next radar image before it hit Vilonia...

Click the radar image and look at it closely. Look how tight the rotation is on radar. Very scary image to see when covering the storms on air. This was one county outside of our viewing area. Of course, we went on as it moved NE into White County. Big thanks to Robert Rowland in White County for his calm and accurate reports of the storm as it passed through. We've got some great wx watchers in Region 8!

I'm heading out to run some non weather related errands and then back in studio for more severe weather and flooding tonight. Stay tuned!

Ryan