During the afternoon, storms started firing up in western Illinois. Several of them went severe and then finally one went tornadic near the Peoria area. I sat there at work drooling at the radar screen and was hoping that someone was chasing it. Right before I left work, I tried to come up with a target area. I had planned on heading up towards Bloomington, but with the storms moving at 65mph I had to readjust my plans.
I departed work at 4:00pm and headed home to load up the gear. I started powering up all the gear and of course I blow the fuse to my power inverter. (I hadn’t tested it since wiring it direct to the battery) When swearing at the fuse box didn’t fix it, I swapped out the fuse and we were back in business. By this time I had decided to head a bit south rather than attempt catching the insanely fast moving storms to the north.
After topping off the gas tank at a lovely $2.35/gallon, I headed south through town and then west out into the country. I ended up in Piatt county just southeast of Monticello, IL. (around 5:30pm CST) I found a great flat area at 1100N/1400E and pulled off the road to begin watching this cell to my SSW. After just a minute or two of sitting there, a severe thunderstorm warning was issued for it. (yippeee!) I grabbed the cameras and hopped out of the car. The winds were howling and unfortunately I didn’t have time to throw the anemometer on the roof. I setup the tripod for the camcorder and held on to it while I shot some stills with the other camera. I heard some thunder and it started to rain, so I quickly grabbed the gear and retreated to the car.
It started pouring pretty good and then I heard some hail slap the car. Radar wasn’t indicating much in the way of hail, so I didn’t worry about it pelting the car. (it was only pea sized hail anyways!) The storm quickly passed and I jumped out of the car to take a few more pictures before it scooted out of the county. I wasn’t seeing much of anything forming back to my southwest, so I decided to make my way back home and call it a chase. More storms fired up a few hours later, but nothing worth going out again.
Chase Summary:
Well this wasn’t too shabby for the first chase of the year. I wish I could have gone to Iowa or northern Illinois, but given the circumstances this was pretty nifty too. It was a good test run for all the gear and it will give me a few more ideas for future chases. I’m definitely happy that spring is here and can’t wait to go on the next chase!
