AccuWeather's Tony Laubach is on the road chasing severe weather that's barreling across the central U.S. These dangerous storms are expected to cause life-threatening flooding.
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00:00Some areas could see four months worth of rain in just four days, and that's going to trigger historic flooding from Arkansas to Ohio.
00:08All right. We want to take our coverage or want to take our coverage over to meteorologist and storm chaser Tony Labeck as he joins us live from inside this mystery machine.
00:20We're not sure that mystery machine in Jefferson County, Missouri.
00:24This is just south of Saint Louis along Interstate 55, and you're gearing up for the severe weather today, Tony.
00:35Yeah, we're gearing up for the severe weather for the next several days, Bernie, and you guys mentioned that this is going to be a threat we're going to be tracking through the weekend.
00:44We're going to head down probably to the Blyers, Blyersville, Arkansas.
00:49Still trying to get some of these town names. I think I know that here by being a meteorologist in this area for so long.
00:55But we're going to head down another few hours south and get set up for today where we're tracking that potential for what could be a pretty nasty severe weather outbreak today, guys.
01:03Yeah. What's the name behind the mystery machine?
01:09The name of the mystery machine is called the Weather Wolf. It's actually a white SUV, and my spirit animal has always been the wolf.
01:17So I finally dubbed this one the Weather Wolf.
01:22As you're chasing this afternoon, what are some of the unique challenges you think you're going to face later today and tonight?
01:32Well, Bernie, I think it's going to be the storm mode. There's a lot of question today as to exactly how messy this setup is going to get for us.
01:39A lot of the models are really indicating we're going to see a lot of storms, unlike where a setup like last night, for instance, early on, where you had three or four isolated discreet supercells.
01:51It's easier to kind of track those.
01:54And you've got a cluster of storms in an area where the terrain, fortunately, is pretty decent there in eastern Arkansas.
01:59And you get into the Mississippi Delta, so you get a little bit more viewing as opposed to further east where you get into the trees and hills.
02:06You're going to be tracking multiple storms. There's going to be a lot going on.
02:09So you're unfortunately kind of tunnel visioned on what you have in front of you.
02:14Sometimes it's hard to make those moves from storm to storm in an environment like that.
02:19And I guess what makes this a little more tricky, we're worried about all modes of severe weather, including the flash flooding.
02:26And I have to imagine that when you're chasing storms for tornadoes, that could be very dangerous when you're also dealing with those storms producing flash flooding.
02:40It is extremely dangerous, Bernie, and our cell phone signal is dying here a little bit.
02:44So bear with us if we drop out for a second. We should get back into coverage momentarily.
02:48But yeah, we are talking about flash flooding being a concern because that starts cutting off roads,
02:54and especially in this area where river flooding gets compounded because then you've got creek crossings,
02:59low water crossings that become an issue that may not be directly in the storm.
03:05You know, that's the other thing to consider, too.
03:07You get a lot of rain in some areas upstream, that water flows downstream.
03:12So areas you are, oh, this is clear out of the storm, all of a sudden become low water crossings, and that cuts you off.
03:19Another reason, too, we'll limit our chasing to mostly daylight hours because at night, obviously, you don't see that flooding,
03:26especially in more hilly areas until you're right on top of it.
03:29And besides you, we're seeing some dash cam footage from Aaron Jayjack.
03:34I know you kind of all work together as storm chasers here to kind of survey the scene and set up.
03:40What's kind of the teamwork that goes on out there?
03:44Well, there's a lot of coordination that goes on between chasers.
03:48A lot of times it's handy, you know, now that live video streaming is so prevalent.
03:54In my case, because I'm kind of a hail guy, I like to get into the core and try to sample the hail and get hail-sized measurements.
04:00When you're in the core, you can't see what's going on.
04:02But sometimes we tap into chaser feeds, live feeds, other live feeds.
04:06So Jayjack, who's streaming right now, if he's outside of the storm, we have a second set of eyes.
04:11So if this storm suddenly starts to get tornadic and he's showing, you know, a very good rotating wall cloud,
04:16we can back out of a core and get back into visibility to see what's going on.
04:21So that allows you multiple sets of eyes on the same storm if you're in different areas.
04:25Makes it very easy sometimes to navigate.
04:28And really quickly, Tony, you're also the eyes of the storm itself,
04:32and it is storm chasers that oftentimes are the first eyes that report what they're looking at
04:40and what they're finding to the National Weather Service, correct?
04:45That is correct.
04:46You've got to remember, radar and the technology we have are several minutes behind what's going on in real time,
04:51as opposed to if I'm live on air with you, I can immediately show you, hey, this is what's happening here on the ground right now.
04:57And we've done it here live on the AccuWeather Network several times where we've put a tornado on air
05:02as it was developing before warning ever went out.