Date: November 10, 2002
Time: 3:00 P.M.
Place: I-40 East of Nashville
Camera: Canon Rebel and Sony Handycam
Warnings: Tornado Warning
Rating: S4

With a high risk issued in November, its gaurenteed that I'll chase just about any cloud with rain. Well as it turned out, we picked a good cloud. Josh, Andy (my suitemates), and I decided to head out and catch us a twister.

This storm was the first of the afternoon to show signs of rotation. The tornado warning was was issued for Williamson county, one county to our south. We had 2 choices, shoot southeast on I-24 and punch the core, or head east on I-40 and gamble that the storm would continue on its current track. We chose the second.

As we left, storm tracks placed the possible tornado near Lebenon at about 3:50. We arrived in Lebenon at 3:20, but it became apparent that the storm had started right-turning. We raced east again as more warnings came out for the storm. New storm tracks were placing the tornado near Carthage. About 5 miles east of Carthage, the intense rain and wind slowed our progress considerably. We arrived in Carthage at the same time the tornado was scheduled to, but again it became clear that the storm had continued to right-turn. The supercell was now travelling parallel to the interstate, leaving us with little hope of seeing anything, so we decided to call it quits. The moral of this story, don't attack storms from the north and don't count on storm tracks more than 45 minutes in the future.

This was easily the worst tornado outbreak to hit the US in in several years. 17 people were killed in Tennessee, 35 through out the eastern half of the US. One of the strongest tornados of the outbreak hit Morgan county Tennessee. The half-mile wide, F3 tornado demolished nearly a third of the small town of Moss Grove.