An organization that works in tandem with North Central Mississippi Skywarn, the North Mississippi Severe Storms Intercept Team (NOMISSIT) undertakes a major field campaign each spring during the two-week period between the close of the Spring semester and opening of the 1st Summer term. This usually occurs during the 2nd and 3rd weeks of May.

The purpose of the trip is to provide additional "real- world" training for NOMISSIT and NCMS members, and to enjoy the sheer beauty of mother nature in action. This is very valuable experience for two reasons. First, it allows students to actually "see" what we have been talking about theoretically in the classroom. Second, many of our students will go on to careers as broadcast meteorologists and may be asked to lead camera crews into the field in search of severe weather. Through their experiences in our operational meteorology program, and the Annual Great Plains Expedition, they will be better prepared to navigate themselves into the most advantageous position possible while maintaining a reasonable amount of safety.

The chase "caravan" usually includes two 15-passenger vans and a few private vehicles. Each vehicle is equipped with a 200- channel scanner, 50-watt amateur radio transceiver, Citizens Band (CB) radio, cellular telephone, Hi-8 video recorder, lap-top computer, and several 35-mm still cameras. On average, about 12 students participate each year.

1998 Expedition
At around 8 a.m. on Saturday, May 16, 1998, a group of about 30 meteorology students from Mississippi State University (mostly NOMISSIT members) left Starkville, MS under the leadership of Dr. David L. Arnold. Loaded into a minivan and two 15-passenger vans (including the infamous Grey Ghost), the group set out for the Great Plains in search of tornadic supercells and two weeks of great severe weather.

The caravan soon swapped the minivan for a sedan (due to engine problems) and then picked up a fellow chaser driving a suburban in Kansas. So with four vehicles, over thirty people, four video cameras, one ham radio, four CB radios, one laptop computer, and several scanners, cell phones, and weather radios, the chasing began. Upon arriving in Kansas, there was at least one chase-worthy storm every night for a week. Dr. Arnold would bring up models and charts on the laptop every morning, and a forecast area would be outlined. Then most of the day was usually spent driving to the forecast region. Most of the storms chased this year were at night.

The chases took the team to eleven states from Missouri to Colorado and Texas to Nebraska. They traveled over 7000 miles in only sixteen days. Sleep was never the top priority, but when they did it was usually at a campground of some sort-sometimes wet, sometimes dry. Along the way chasers got to check out the University of Oklahoma's Doppler on Wheels (DOW) trucks, Carhenge, the world's biggest ball of twine, and Brady, TX-the geographic center of Texas. The team also had the pleasure of being interviewed and followed by a TV crew from the Tokyo Broadcasting Network. The crew was filming an American documentary about storm chasers. As luck would have it, the team spotted a tornado in northern Missouri late that evening. That tornado was the second and last one spotted on the trip. The first was in North Platte, Nebraska as the team was winding down for the night after setting up camp.

Despite the fact that only two tornadoes were seen and they were both at night, the trip was a great learning experience for all who participated. Every good storm chaser knows that tornadoes are not to be expected on every chase. One must be satisfied and excited about seeing genuinely good storms, tornado or not.

1997 Expedition
One of the most successful trips ever taken on by the group, the chase occurred primarily in West Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Colorado.

In the first week, several supercells were intercepted in the West Texas region around the cities on Midland, Odessa, and Big Springs.  Several of these storms produced wall clouds and funnel clouds, though none touched down.  Near the end of the week, though, as the group made its way into the Oklahoma panhandle, a large supercell began to develop and was chased for over three hours before being intercepted just before nightfall.  It produced a rainwrapped tornado, and a heck of a wall cloud (referred to as the ID4 UFO).

Following the interception of the tornado, the "Gray Ghost's" transmission broke down near the town of Pratt, Kansas.  While waiting for about three days for a replacement to be sent from Denver, the team rented a car and was able to capture a landspout on video as well as several funnel clouds in the area around Wichita.

Once back on the road in full force, the team traveled to Colorado to follow some storms that did not produce anything of interest.  But, while making their way back down towards Texas, they were able to intercept a storm that produced an awesome roll cloud formation near Shamrock, Texas.

In the same area, the next evening, a system produced more than 6 inches of rain in a three hour period, flooding a small town, and turning the "Gray Ghost" into a motor boat.

The culmination of the trip came on the last day of the expedition while in central Oklahoma.  An outbreak of severe weather produced many tornadoes, two of which were captured on video.  One near Middleburg, OK that was rated a borderline F2/F3.  The second toppled a train 30 miles to the south and was rated an F3.  This tornado was first spotted by the NOMISSIT group, and they were credited with alerting the local officials about the train incident.  Fortunately it was hauling only grain, and noone was hurt.  This same storm system went on to produce an F5 tornado that completely wiped out the town of Jeryl, Texas.

1996 Expedition
A bit more arduous due to the lack of convective activity in the Southern Plains. The crew logged 7000 miles of highway extending from the Texas panhandle all the way to Minnesota. Video was taken of two nighttime tornadoes, one southeast of Watertown, South Dakota, and the other just north of Concordia, Kansas. A developing tornado in the dust-whirl stage was also filmed just south of Great Bend, Kansas. This same storm produced numerous gustnadoes along the rear-flank shear zone as it wrapped east-northeastward. On the final night of the expedition we lost one of the large van windows to a baseball-sized hail just northeast of Oklahoma City while parked under an overpass (a very wide-shouldered overpass on a deserted two-lane highway).