December 2015 - February 2016 storm chase roundup

The systems that produced the tornadoes in Mississippi and the Dallas metro also brought winter thunderstorms to the St. Louis metro in the days before and after Christmas. I captured these scenes (handheld video and dashcam):

VIDEO: December 26 St. Louis metro lightning
VIDEO: December 23 St. Louis metro lightning

Animated GIF of lightning with Christmas lights at New Baden from one of the dashcams on the 16th:

A legit winter storm observation day! Despite the better parameters down in Mississippi where a significant tornado occurred, as is my usual plan, I covered the secondary target close to the surface low in my backyard from Hannibal to Jacksonville. Only one storm produced a tornado in Illinois (the storm about 40 miles to my north) but I witnessed a decent supercell and small hail just south of Quincy. The video below is a timelapse from my new 4-way dashcam setup.

VIDEO: December 23 storm observing timelapse

Another event typical of most winter storm observation days: a big setup in the Southern US states, with a secondary target in the Midwest. Of course, as usual, I chose the backyard target - which was my living room on this day. Despite good moisture return this far north, weak lapse rates kept the convection up here from organizing into anything interesting. I observed a few weak storms along I-55 at Livingston that initially looked promising, but they were continually undercut by outflow. I didn't take any pictures or videos, and was back home by 4PM. A wedge tornado was captured by a few storm observers in Alabama.

This is the only winter storm I've covered so far this season, and it wasn't much of one. The St. Louis metro picked up between 2 and 4 inches this day. I didn't capture anything noteworthy during the event.

VIDEO: January 19 snow in St. Louis

I already have a blog post on this event, but I figured I'd list it here for the sake of completeness.

PICTURES & VIDEO: December 2015 St. Louis record flooding