Chase LogBefore this little adventure, I had never set foot outside IL in a chasing capacity. An opportunity to chase in the plains had presented itself to me and I was definitely not going to pass it up. (plus I needed a vacation anyways!) Darin Kaiser, a chaser from Clinton, IL, sent me an email informing me that he would be off work this week and that he was interested in chasing if there was something to be chased. I somewhat jokingly told him that the moderate risk out in KS/OK looked good and that we should go for it. When he emailed me back and asked me when I wanted to leave, I was quite shocked and excited at the same time. I rushed to get all the resources I could for chasing since I would be in a new area. Not having a laptop, I loaded everything I could into my Palm Pilot. This took me alot longer than I thought which kept me from getting to bed till 1:30.

Day 1: Sunday (June 3)
Target Area: Wichita, KS
After waking up at a bright and early 5am, I checked some data and everything still looked good in Kansas. I received a call from Darin at 6am asking me if it was still a go, which I happily said yes. After loading up all my gear into his car, we hit the road a little after 7am. After starting off in completely cloudless skies in IL, things started to change once we got into Missouri. The overnight MCS had moved into Missouri which was providing us with a very wet and tiring drive across the show-me state. Our plan was to head into Kansas City and then go from there, but after receiving a call from Scott Kampas, we decided we’d better start heading south. We hopped south on RT 7 and then jogged west to Ottawa, KS on HW 68. Once we got to Ottawa, we decided to head SW to Wichita, KS on I-35. Rather than going to the downtown area, we went just south to the town of Derby, KS. After chowing down on some DQ food and waving at the human ice cream cone in front of the building, we headed west. (I apologize for the lack of detailed road info, my GPS ran out of memory and I lost all of my track log!!)

I believe we were somewhere on RT 40 between the Sedgwich and Kingman county lines. We hadn’t seen any chasers until all of a sudden we saw about 4 or 5 cars parked on a county road. We kept going and noticed another 4 or 5 on the next road, and then another 4 on the next one. We finally pulled off on one of the country roads and talked to some of these chasers. One guy looked very familiar, and since I’ve never been out there before, I figured I’d seen him on TV somewhere. Darin rolled down the window and asked him who he was. He replied “Piotrowski”. Yes, of all the people, we ran into the famous Jeff Piotrowski! Also on that road was Tornado Safari Chase Tours, led by Stephen Levine. We talked to him and his one tour member (Angelina) for quite awhile. All the other chasers decided that this was a bust and left the area, while we stayed and continued talking to Stephen and Angelina. While we were talking, I heard this noise coming from our vehicle. *light bulb* It was my weather radio, which up till that point, hadn’t even been able to pick up much of a signal. I ran and brought it out so everyone could hear it. It happened to be a severe thunderstorm warning for Kingman and N. Harper county, which was just about where we were. *yippeeeeeeeee!*

We said goodbye to Stephen and Angelina and headed SW on 42 into Kingman county. Shortly after we left, the weather radio went off again, this time a tornado warning for the same county. Darin and I are getting really pumped now and we finally started to see some lightning. Scott called me on the cell phone and told me how rapidly this storm had developed, so I knew it was a good one. We followed this storm for the next 2-3 hours as it slowly moved across the area. We saw several lowerings throughout its life cycle and Darin says he has video of a touchdown. (my video didn’t come out at all!) There were reports of a touchdown with this cell, so had it been daylight, I’m sure we would have gotten better video. We eventually encountered some more chasers / TV crews who were following this storm at night. It finally died out and with nothing else in our immediate area, we decided to call it a night. We headed back into Wichita and stayed at a Quality Inn. (once again backing my claim that I did not stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night)

Day 2: Monday (June 4)
Target Area: Topeka/Kansas City area
After eating some breakfast and checking out TWC, we decided to find a library. Being in Wichita, we decided to find ‘Main St.’ and hopefully we would find a library. Sure enough, we found the main public library which was quite a nice library. We told the people at the desk that we were from out of state and wanted to use the computers. I was shocked to find out that we didn’t have to pay a dime to get a library card! (kudos to Wichita!!!) I got online and loaded up the Day 1 and other weather data. The best spot looked to be Eastern KS and Western MO. After checking some email, we went back to the hotel and checked out. We decided to head NE on I-35 towards the Kansas City area. Darin thought it would be good to get off at Topeka and see what was going on with the weather. It was rather cloudy and cold in Topeka, so I called Rob Stout from INCHASE for a weather update. He informed me that the SPC had issued an MCD stating that South Central KS had a much better shot of severe weather than where we were. We hopped back on I-35 and proceeded SW towards Wichita.

On our way back, we started seeing some towers going up, so we figured we better get off the turnpike! (“maybe we should get off this road”) We ended up in Harper county where there happened to be a severe thunderstorm warning. When we got closer to the storm, we started getting some small pea-size hail. Then we started to notice louder clunks on the car as we got closer. Darin pointed out the window and I noticed the hail splashing in the field! (which is great on video!) I did jump out and grab one of the big hailstones and sure enough, it was golfball-sized. We encountered a group of meteorology students who were also inspecting the hail and the skies. We also talked to one of the local county officers who was very nice to us. While we were sitting there, we saw the DOW truck go by and 2 other radar trucks from the Univ. of Massachusettes. Being typical chasers, we decided to follow them and see which storm they were targeting. We ended up about 10 miles west of Wellington, KS on US 160. There we encountered what appeared to be another chase tour and 2 DOW trucks.

The view was quite astonishing and just couldn’t be captured on video. Mammatus clouds directly over head, a storm brewing to our west and one dying to our east. A couple of chasers from KZSN (102.1 FM) pulled up next to us. Like the other chasers we had met the day before, they were also very friendly. We watched the storm to our west which appeared to be strengthening. All of a sudden, a severe thunderstorm warning went out for that cell that we were watching. (how lucky can we be!!) The lightning was starting to increase from the cell, so I took some video for a little while. The KZSN guys decided to head back and get some food while we stayed and watched the storm for a little while longer. Almost out of gas, Darin decided that we’d better go into town and find some so we wouldn’t be stranded in the middle of nowhere during a severe thunderstorm. The severe weather seemed to be dying, so we just decided to head back into Wichita and call it a night.

Day 3: Tuesday (June 5)
Target Area: Woodward, OK
After watching some TWC in the morning and visiting the Wichita Public Library again, we decided that a good target area would be Woodward, OK. We decided, however, to make a pit stop in Wakita, OK. (it just wouldn’t be right if we didn’t stop and check out this little town!) As we entered town, we saw a bunch of tourists taking pictures and going through the ‘twister museum’. When we turned the corner, there was a DOW truck sitting there. (hmmm, this is interesting we thought) We decided to continue going west towards are target area, but as we left, there was this nice red Dodge Ram that made us both laugh. (I wonder what kind of special discount that guy got on it!) Anyways, we decided to head towards the town of Enid, OK to check on weather data. We found the library which didn’t even require us to have a library card in order to use the computers! By habit, I loaded up my weather page and clicked on the local radar and noticed that Central IL was about to get slammed! (darn, here I am in Oklahoma wishing I was back home!!) I finally loaded up the latest info for our area and noticed that we still needed to head towards Woodward.

As we were heading west on US 60, we saw some towers going up to our north. We decided to head towards these towers and hoping that we weren’t blowing our chances by changing target areas. The storm we did encounter never did go severe, though it did look like it had a wall cloud with it. Anyways, we ended up near Medicine Lodge, KS. (yes, we went quite a bit further north!) Just around 7:00pm, we heard a tornado warning go out for Woodward county in Oklahoma! *DOH!!!* We decided to head back that way and hopefully intercept something, but we were quite far from there. On the way down there, we heard another tornado warning, this time for Woods county, which is just east of Woodward county. A few minutes later, another tornado warning gets issued for Major county, which is south of Woods county. (should of stuck with the target area!!) Anyways, we finally made it back down there and ended up punching through alot of heavy rain. We finally ended up in Custer County and that’s when the fun began.

We watched this cell continue to grow into a line of storms and the lightning from this was totally awesome. (DUDE!) It started raining so we decided to move away from the line so we could get some good shots of this lightning. I had never seen such intense and continuous lightning until that night, wow was it awesome! CGs, CCs, anvil crawlers, it was great. I finally tried some still shots with my SLR camera, hopefully they will turn out. Anyways, after watching this storm system, we realized that it was moving towards us! They issued a severe thunderstorm warning for our county and then we realized we were about 4 miles from the storm. Just as we were entering Clinton, OK, that’s when all heck broke lose! Very heavy rain, winds, and intense lightning. Unfortunately, I realized that I had run both batteries down on my camcorder and Darin only had about 10 min left on his. We decided to call it a night and look around for a hotel. We headed east on I-40 and came into Weatherford, OK. We were both starving, so at 1:30 in the morning, we went into the only open restaraunt in town. We both ordered breakfast, which wasn’t too bad, but a bit too greasy for me. There were a few chasers at the restaraunt, but not sure who they were. (I think their plates were from NJ) Anyways, we left the restaraunt (rather abruptly as Darin ran over the curb) and found a Days Inn. The guy at the counter was hilarious, and even gave us $10 off the room because it was so late. After watching a little TV, we finally hit the sack around 2:30 – 3:00 in the morning. *yawn*

Day 4: Wednesday (June 6)
Target Area: Champaign, IL
With the severe weather threat shifting to the northern plains, we decided to head for home. We did encounter some towers in Missouri, but they kept fizzling out before they could get organized. Anyways, we finally pulled in my driveway at 11:30pm!

Final thoughts:
All I can say is wow! 3 days of severe weather in a row, you just can’t beat that. While I didn’t see any wedge tornadoes, I was very satisfied with the wall clouds, mammatus, rainbow, golfball-size hail, and spectacular lightning. It was a great experience and I can’t wait to do it again. It was really spooky on how decent our target areas were on all three days. (not bad for a computer geek like me!) I learned alot from the trip and hope to use my experience on future chases. The weather radio coverage was, well, it sucked. The cell phone coverage was just as bad which made getting updates really frustrating. It was also cool to meet some really nice people out in KS/OK. (except for the 2 oklahoma girls who flipped us off) If any chasers out there ever have a need to chase in IL, I will welcome them with the same hospitality as they showed me. (group hug!)

Special Thanks:
Well, a HUGE thanks goes out to Darin. Without him, this trip would not have been possible. I’d also like to thank Scott Kampas and Rob Stout for periodically nowcasting for us. Next time I get some $$$, steak is on me guys!

Chase LogThe Day 2 Outlook from the Friday had virtually the entire state of Illinois in a slight risk for Saturday. Now while I’m not a huge fan of Day 2 outlooks, it was at least a promising outlook for Saturday. I woke up around 10:30 and checked out the models and other weather data. Noticed that a few cells had gone severe in central IL earlier in the morning which provided some hope of good stuff to come later in the day. Models didn’t look too bad, neither did the upper air data. The Day 1 outlook still had most of IL in a slight risk of severe weather, so I was still optimistic. The problem that concerned me was with all the clouds left over from the morning storms. I decided to give it a few hours and see if the sun could burn off some of the cloud debris.

While waiting on the clouds to clear out, I decided to watch a very interesting Cubs broadcast on Fox where they turned back the clock and showed the game in how it would look back in the early days of television. (pretty nifty idea by Fox). Anyways, I checked out radar and I noticed some cells going up in NW IL, so I figured that was the start of the severe weather. After a little while of watching the radar, the cells encountered some atmospheric condition in which I am not familiar with and it just blew the heck out of the storms. They died out very rapidly and it wasn’t looking good for the rest of the evening.

Around 7:15, I decided to order a pizza and watch a couple of movies since there was nothing really going on with the weather. So as I’m sitting there enjoying some good pizza and a movie, I hear my weather radio go off. Bear in mind, I’m about 50 miles south of the transmitter in Champaign, so it barely picks up the signal, let alone the alert tones, hehe. I paused the movie and ran over to turn up the weather radio and come to find out it is a Tornado Warning for parts of Douglas, Moultrie, and Coles. That totally got me in gear and I shut the movie off and quickly loaded up the radar loop to see what was going on. A supercell was slowly moving SE and it was headed right for Coles county. (SPC later issued an MCD that mentioned this supercell in Coles county)

Now I’m very hesitant about chasing at night, especially when there’s large hail and possible tornadoes lurking around me. However, I decided to give it a shot and see what I could find out there. I unplugged all my stuff and loaded up the gear and went out. I decided to head west on Route 16 towards Mattoon to try to get behind the storm and stay out of the way. I was seeing alot of lightning on my way over there, but very little rain at the time. I drove through Mattoon and ended up going north on Rt. 45 for a few miles until I decided that the storm was getting too intense in this direction. I decided to turn around and then head back to Mattoon. Well, instead of jogging back to Rt. 16, I took this road that was a mile north of Rt 16. I went east on this road and finally saw a sign that said Charleston to the left. I took a left on this road (County road 880 E.) and went North when the lightning got really intense. Around this time, the weather radio went off announcing another Tornado Warning for Coles county, which was triggered by a sighted funnel cloud NW of Mattoon. I took a gander at GPS and it was showing me going away from where I wanted to be going. I quickly did a turnabout and headed back south. I looked at GPS again and noticed where I was and headed towards Rt. 16.

This is where things get REAL interesting. As soon as I started heading east on Rt. 16, it was like the storm was going postal! The rain was a total downpour, the visibility was almost nil. The lightning was very intense and spectacular at the same time. If that wasn’t enough, I had very strong winds (I’d estimate 45-55 mph) attempting to blow me off the road. I was moving about 20-25mph tops and I had these idiots passing me like it was nothing. I commented on the video that I’d probably see them stuck in a ditch up the road, hehe. Anyways, I slowly made my back into Charleston and the storm wasn’t letting up. I continued driving east through Charleston and went a few miles outside of town where I totally got slammed. (bear cage? core? whatever you want to call it , it was intense.) This wasn’t getting me anywhere, so I made another turnaround and headed back towards Charleston. I decided that I’d had enough for the night and headed back to the dorm. Got back inside and checked radar, noticed a huge cluster of storms south of Coles county. Most of the activity was down there and the threat for Coles county had diminished.

Wow, what a crazy night! Never expected the lone tornado warnings to include Coles county, kind of ironic! I never got a glimpse of the possible tornado / funnel cloud, but the other weather elements kept me plenty busy throughout the chase. My recently acquired GPS unit really proved itself tonight, I definitely wouldn’t recommend chasing at night without it, even if you know the road network. For late August, it was good to get out and chase again, especially on a weekend! Hopefully we’ll get a few more chances to chase before the weather changes too much. Happy Chasing!

Chase LogI wasn’t too confident of severe weather this far east in IL today. I also wasn’t too confident of the SPC including most of IL in a slight risk in their Day 1 outlook. ILX wasn’t even mentioning severe weather for Central IL in their Severe Weather Outlook until they revised it at noon. Also, the models from Thursday night were showing good CAPE values for us, but very little wind shear for tornadic development. So, all-in-all, I was very skeptical about our chances of severe weather.

Around 10:00am I was working outside and looked up at this cloud. First off, there were no other clouds in the sky, just this pretty fluffy cloud. What made this cloud unique though was the rapid growth that it was showing. I was just sitting there watching this grow, and it was moving too! That showed me that there was definitely some instability in our area, which slightly improved my thought of severe weather.

I got off work a few hours early and came home to check the weather situation. First, I found out that there was a Severe Thunderstorm Watch for W. Central IL. A quick check of radar showed me why they were under a watch. A large storm system was moving into IL from Iowa and it was strengthening as it moved closer. Around 3:15, a Severe Thunderstorm Watch was issued for Central / Southern IL. There were some cells starting to pop up ahead of the line of storms, but most of them weren’t really reaching severe levels. Around 6:15, I decided to gear up and head out. One problem that I had was that I was out of video tape. (Tuesday’s chase wiped me out, hehe) I made a dash for Super K-Mart and what I thought would be an in-out 5 minute ordeal turned out to take 20 minutes. I had ONE stinking item and the lines were backed up in the express lines, what’s the deal with that?? I finally get out of there around 6:40ish and see a lot of lightning to the west of me. I run home real quick to unplug my computer and get the rest of my gear.

I decided to take Rt. 45 a few miles north of Champaign. As I was doing so, I quickly saw a ‘little’ cell that wasn’t part of the huge line of storms. It was packing a punch though, as the winds were affecting my driving. I decided that I better move away from the storm, so I found an east route and took it. I went east a few miles and then turned south on 1700E. I went a mile south of Duncan Road and stopped to shoot a few minutes of video. I zoomed in on a ‘possible’ funnel cloud, probably just scud though. It was too hazy and was getting rain wrapped to make any conclusions on whether or not it was rotating.

I went a bit further down 1700 E and then I decided to head home as the spotters were stating that most of the severe weather was moving out of the county. Well, when I turned around, I ran right into the end of it and experienced heavy rain, gusty winds, and frequent lightning. I headed back north on 1700E and took Windsor Road west to Rt. 130. (this just happened to be the same section of road that I took during my June 4, 1999 chase!) I glanced over at my camcorder and it had about a minute of video left on it. All of a sudden, this lightning bolt hits right in front of me, all while i’m still shooting video. Talk about a happy chaser, what are the odds?!

Overall, not too bad of a chase. The lightning was pretty decent and the scud clouds made for a scary experience! No tornadoes this time, but the wind shear just wasn’t there so I didn’t really expect them. Maybe we’ll get another chance to chase this weekend, who knows!

Chase LogLooking at the models from 06/19, the chance of severe weather in IL was evident, but it didn’t look that impressive. The SPC had put IL in a slight risk of severe weather in their Day 1 outlook on Tuesday. The NWS in Lincoln had also mentioned the risk of severe weather in their Severe Weather Outlook. The day started out with rain, lots of rain across most of IL. It was really dreary in Champaign most of the day, though it seemed to let up when the guys and I at work took a little extended lunch break to visit our new Hooters restaraunt in Champaign. (Gotta remember that place for chasing get togethers! *grin*) Anyways, around 3:30pm, I was cleaning up stuff at work and looked up at the sky and boom, what did I see but mammatus clouds! I hadn’t seen them since a chase in 1999, so I was getting kinda excited about our severe weather chances. On my way home, I flipped on the weather radio and just as I did, I heard them say ‘tornado warning for coles county’. I was like ‘Woah!!’ I raced home and did a quick check of the current radar and it showed a couple of nice cells south of me. I made a quick decision to try and catch the tail end of the storm.

I left Champaign at around 4:30pm and proceeded south on I-57. On my way down there, I spotted those mammatus clouds again and a few lightning bolts, but no tornadic activity. (probably because I was trying to look at the storm through a bunch of rain). Anyways, I got off at the Mattoon exit (184) and went south on Rt. 121. I took 121 south for what seemed forever. I finally stopped off at the Amoco station in Montrose, IL and filled up. First off, the pumps were the old fashioned ones, no credit card sliders here. I started pumping the gas and it was going super slow. The gas attendant came out and fixed it and pumped the gas for me. He was a very nice and friendly guy. I told him I was out storm chasing and he was like ‘that’s cool’. I got the premium gas (93 octane) and it was $2.09 / gallon, same as it is in Champaign. Ended up costing me $34 to fill my tank, thank god I had cash on me, I don’t think that town has an ATM machine. *grin*.

I left the little town of Montrose and proceeded south on 121 all the way into Clay City (Clay County). I decided to take Rt. 50 east into Olney, IL. The sun was out, humidity was back and there were very few clouds in the sky. All I kept seeing was some big clouds way off to the east in Indiana, but I wasn’t about to go that far. The weather radio coverage was really bad until I hit Rt. 50, then I started picking up the station out of Vincenns. They weren’t really saying much about severe weather, so I decided to head back home. I took Rt. 50 to Rt. 130 and went north towards Charleston. I did a quick drive-by at EIU (my school, woo hoo!!) and then proceeded to Mattoon to hit I-57 north.

It was just after 8:00pm when I made my way north on I-57. I cranked on the radio and listened to some music, reflecting on the slightly disappointing chase. Got about 25 miles out of Champaign and then my ‘silent till then’ weather radio goes blaring off. I thought to myself: “Self, what in the heck could the weather radio be going off for???” The SPC had issued a Severe Thunderstorm Watch for parts of E. Central IL including Champaign County! I was kinda laughing my butt off, trying not to lose control of my vehicle. How could I drive over 200 miles and not see a darn thing and then just by chance I run into something back home?? Anyways, I thought nothing of the watch until about 5 minutes later when I started seeing lightning to my NE. Again, the weather radio goes blaring off and they had issued a Severe Thunderstorm Warning for Dewitt county. At this point I’m starting to get my adrenaline back and for the first time of the day, I took the camcorder out of the bag and started shooting video. The lightning was getting really vivid and frequent as I made my way home.

I decided to get off at the Monticello/Savoy exit on I-57. I went west a mile and then north and pulled over and took more video. The lightning was really awesome, yet I noticed it getting closer to me, so I had to abandon my position and move away from the storm. I went a few miles east on the Monticello road and then went south a mile and shot some more video. Then on the scanner I hear the local ESDA stating that spotters had confirmed a tornado on the ground in Piatt county near Mansfield, IL. Boy, that really got me going. I started looking around in the flashes of lightning, but couldn’t see anything on the ground. At this point, the lightning was really getting close and more dangerous, so I had to move quickly. I left the camcorder up on the camera mount in the car and continued filming while I was driving. The weather radio started going off again and they issued a Severe Thunderstorm Warning for Champaign county, then right after that they issued a Tornado Warning for Champaign county. As I made my way back towards Champaign, the lightning was really popping all around me, so I decided to unhook my mobile scanner antenna ‘just in case’. (course if it hits my car, I’m probably screwed anyways!)

I made my way back into Champaign and headed home real quick to unplug my computer. Just as I pulled in, it let loose pouring down rain. I dashed inside and unplugged all my crap and made quick dash to the bathroom. Ran back outside and all my windows had fogged up just in the few minutes that I was gone. I drove around town for a bit and it really got bad. I was going about 10-15mph tops because of the heavy rainfall and the flooding on the roads. (Let me tell you, some people in Champaign just don’t understand to slow down when it gets really bad outside.) Anyways, I made my way slowly around town, still filming, watching the lightning hit all around me. I pulled up to Prospect and Springfield and I saw the very low hanging cloud, which the police and ESDA were seeing too, but it wasn’t rotating. I pointed the camera at it, but doubt it came out with all the rain coming down. The spotters were spotting another funnel cloud behind the previous tornado which prompted the NWS to issue another Tornado Warning for Champaign county. I believe they spotted another tornado near Mahomet soon after the funnel cloud was reported. The line of storms finally moved their way through Champaign county, leaving a ton of rain behind it. (It’s still raining as I’m writing this!!)

WHEW! What a chase day. While I didn’t see any tornadoes (or gustnadoes! *grin*), the lightning was spectacular. The chasing part of this chase turned out to yield nothing, while returning to home base yielded severe weather, go figure! (that is just Stan’s luck!!) Anyways, it was quite a memorable chase and one that I will remember for quite a while. It’s really amazing how some things can go from a bust to a successful chase when you’re least expecting it. Everything just worked out this time and I’m SO greatful! I’d better get this posted and get some sleep, it’s been a very long day. Thanks!!

Chase LogI knew this was going to be a decent day for severe storms. Woke up around 7:30 and checked the SPC Day 1 outlook and it had Central IL in a moderate risk for severe weather. ILX had also mentioned severe weather in their special weather statement which stated that the primary concern would be “fast moving tornadoes.” So around 10am while I’m checking out the data, all of a sudden the weather radio goes off. At first I thought it was just a special weather statement regarding the moderate severe risk. WRONG! They had issued a severe thunderstorm warning for Champaign county!! I dashed to the window and looked out and sure enough, it was dark as heck in the south. I checked radar real quick and noticed that this cell had popped out of nowhere and was building very rapidly. From my location in Champaign, we got about 30 seconds of rain and pea-sized hail. I heard on the scanner that some of the spotters were reporting golfball sized hail in some locations! (Georgetown would later get baseball sized hail which caused a lot of damage.) Anyways, I knew that it was going to be a good day if we were already getting storms at 10 in the morning. (It’s not often that the SPC issues an MCD that mentions Champaign, hehe!

Around 3pm, supercells were beginning to form in N. central IL and move to the E-NE very rapidly. There were a number of warnings issued with these supercells, most of them being severe thunderstorm warnings. Around 6:00pm, the storms were starting to inch their way towards Champaign county. I decided to go grab a bite to eat at the local McD’s before I went out. At 7pm, I loaded all the gear up and decided to head up towards the northern part of Champaign county. I went North on Prospect Avenue in Champaign and proceeded to drive out in the country towards the storms. I was hearing numerous reports of tornadoes up in the Gibson City area, so I knew I was headed towards a good storm. As I got closer to the storms, the sky was both spectacular, yet very dangerous looking. I pulled off on a side road and started filming this spectacular array of clouds. As I was filming, I noticed some debris kick up in a field. I quickly focused my camera on that area and tried to film as best as I could. Even after analyzing the video tape, I cannot confirm if the debris was rotating or not (where have I heard/said this before?!

Anyways, I decided to head away from that area because the precip was starting to pick up and I didn’t want to encounter any hail. As I was heading back south towards Champaign, the spotters were reporting funnels all over the place, with a few touchdowns. The sky at this point was downright scary. I was surrounded by numerous wall clouds and other ominous clouds. As I proceeded on Rt. 136 towards I-57, I heard numerous spotters calling in a rotating debris cloud. I looked over to my right and saw this puppy about 2-4 miles away from me. (I found out later after talking with storm chasers Chad Gard and Rob Gardner that they had seen it and also gotten stills/video of it which I can’t wait to see!) Unfortunately, I could not get any video because I had the camera mounted on the car mount and could not reposition it in time to get the shot. (argh!!) It was later confirmed in the Local Storm Report to be a tornado.

I cautiously decided to take I-57 back to Champaign, noticing the cars/semi’s parked underneath the overpasses as I went down the interstate. I saw this debris cloud cross right over the interstate, but it had really diminished when it did this, so it didn’t cause any damage or accidents. I took the Olympia Dr. exit and then took Bloomington Rd./Rt.150 west about a mile and then took a side road and stopped to take video. I saw some really awesome lightning (somehow missed it on the video) and neat cloud structures. I was really amazed at the size of the meso that was right overhead. I’d never seen such a sweet cloud than I did tonight.

Overall, this chase was one of the best I’ve ever been on. After last week’s bust in Piatt county, this one really paid off. The possible tornadoes/gustnadoes that I encountered were very cool despite the lack of a condensation funnel. I saw a lot of things tonight that I’ve never seen before, so it was really worth the chase! Hopefully this active weather will continue in the coming weeks to provide even more opportunities to go chasing.

Chase LogRight before I went to bed on the 11th, I decided to check the models to see if they showed any promise for severe weather on Friday. As soon as I loaded up the ETA model and looked at the CAPES, I started drooling! The center of the highest CAPES were right over Central IL and were peaking in the 4000′s! I thought to myself: “I’m no forecaster, but I bet the SPC puts us in a moderate risk tomorrow.” Needless to say, when I woke up Friday morning, the SPC had done precisely as I had predicted by putting us in a moderate risk!! Everything was looking good and all the ingredients were in place for some good storms to develop.

I managed to get off work a little early and went home around 2:30 to check up on all the data. I noticed a line of storms forming right in the middle of the state that stretched across the entire state and into Missouri. I was hoping that some supercells would form either in front or behind the line of storms, which they eventually did. My buddy Rob popped online and informed me that he was also monitoring the weather situation and wanted to go out chasing. So, I packed up my gear and headed over to his house around 4:30pm and met up with Rob and his brother Tom. When I got there, we checked radar again and noticed the supercells starting to form behind the main line of storms.

We wanted to go through the line of storms and intercept the supercells that were forming behind it, but that would prove to be very tricky, especially considering we didn’t want to punch any cores and endanger our lives. Rob, Tom, and I packed up our gear and went out a little after 5pm. We took the Monticello road all the way into Monticello to begin our chase. At this time, we noticed that it was extremely hazy, probably due to the extremely high dewpoints (70+). My weather radio kept going off for tornado warnings, but most of them were doppler indicated. We drove all around Piatt county, didn’t really see too much as everything was rain wrapped. We saw a few wall clouds, but it was hard to tell if they were rotating or not, once again because of the haze and rain.

After talking with some other chasers who were in the area, they agreed that it was really too hazy to successfully chase and see any type of rotation/debris. It was good to get back out and chase, despite the lack of tornadoes. The severe weather is finally becoming more active here in the midwest. Next week (May 14-20) looks good later in the week for more severe weather in IL.

Also, this was the first chase that my new Sony Digital-8 camcorder has experienced, and it worked pretty well given the poor conditions. Hopefully it wlil see some more action later next week!

Chase LogWell, this really wasn’t a chase, but it turned out to be the best thing I’ve seen all year! On my way home from Charleston – Champaign, I stopped off at work in Urbana, IL. Just as I was getting out of my car, I looked over and noticed this awesome rotating column of air that was stirring up a lot of dust. I quickly yanked out my new camcorder and started filming. About 30 seconds into the video, this guy drives his truck right through the dust devil which I couldn’t believe. (Yes, his windows were down too, hehe) It only lasted for about a minute and then it disappeared. I know it was only a dust devil, but it was rotating fairly well and it was very exciting!!

As we approach April, which usually begins the chase season in IL, this is the coolest thing I’ve seen all year, as we haven’t had anything more than rain this year. Hopefully, Texas will start to share some of their tornadoes with us less fortunate chasers in IL!