Chase LogWell today certainly had the makings of a widespread outbreak of tornadoes and straight-line wind damage. The Day 2 outlook on Tuesday suggested that most of the activity would be in Indiana. They had placed a moderate risk over the entire state of Indiana and a sliver of Illinois. (it was 15 miles SW of Champaign!) As I looked at some of the forecast models, I had a hunch that just maybe IL would have more of a chance that this was indicating. I’d received two separate invitations to go to Indiana with other chasers, however, something told me to stay put and see what would happen right here in my neck of the woods.

When I woke up at 6:00am CDT, my first plan of action was to check the new Day 1 outlook. Not only had the threat shifted west a bit into IL, but the SPC had labeled this threat a ‘high risk’! I repeatedly pinched myself to make sure that I wasn’t dreaming. I said to myself: “Self… This is Illinois, in late October, and you’re telling me that I am in a high risk? No way!!! Way….”) I had decided at that point to make the weather my main and only focus for the remainder of the day. I flipped on TWC and was again shocked to hear them really emphasizing this ‘high risk’ and telling people to keep a very close eye out on the weather.

As I checked my e-mail, I noticed a very ominous public severe weather statement issued by the SPC. They rarely issue these, but when they do, you know something huge is probably going to take place. Around 10:00am, the first MCD was issued. It definitely sounded like things were heating up at this point. Just 45 minutes later, a second MCD was issued. I knew that a tornado watch couldn’t be too much further away from being issued. The new late morning Day 1 outlook had been released half an hour early and it definitely put more of Central IL in a high risk. Finally, at 11:28am, the SPC issued a special PDS Tornado Watch that included parts of Central and Southern IL.

I began watching radar and noticed a pretty nifty little cell just north of St. Louis moving to the northeast. This little cell decided to go severe and even prompt the NWS to issue a tornado warning for it. It continued its way NE towards the Springfield area, which prompted another tornado warning. It seemed to really gain strength once it reached the Decatur area. Spotters over there were reporting golfball-size hail and a tornado was reported on the ground SW of Decatur at 1:07pm. I flipped on our local ABC affiliate WAND-TV (17) out of Decatur and they were showing the cell on radar. They brought up their tracker mode and the arrow of that particular cell was pointing right at Champaign.

At that point, I had seen enough and decided to load up the gear. Not wanting to take any chances, I took my dad and our dog with me just in case. We headed south on Rt. 45 to the Monticello Road and went west. We heard on the spotter net that a tornado had been spotted near Cerro Gordo and was moving at a speedy 40mph to the NE. As we continued west, the sky began to get real dark and lightning was starting to pop. At 1:42pm, the weather radio went off and informed us that a tornado warning had been issued for Champaign county. A tornado had been sighted 3 miles east of Monticello and it was tracking NE at 45mph. (I found out later it had hit Monticello pretty hard, luckily no one was seriously hurt or killed)

We stopped on CR 300 E just 1/4 mile south of CR 600 N to take some pictures (1:51pm). With the amount of rain between our location and the storm, it was hard to make out many of the features. We weren’t there more than 30 seconds when the wind decided it wanted us out of there, so we complied with it and bailed. I turned around at some farm house and headed east to get out of the way of the storm. We made another stop on CR 600 N just 1/4 mile east of CR 1200 E. (2:06pm) Once again, after standing outside for just 30 seconds or so, the wind said hello and told us to leave. We proceeded to head east on CR 600 N and then ran across a spot that looked like a scene from the plains. I stopped again on CR 600 N, just 1/8 mile west of CR 1900 E to take more pictures. Mother nature decided to let us stick around for a few minutes this time before dropping the temperature and blowing an estimated 50-60mph winds in my face. I ran back to the car and as I was getting in, the wind almost ripped the door out of my hands which is no easy task considering the angle that we were parked at and the weight of the door.

Once again, we continued east on CR 600 N all while I encountered some really strong winds blowing tons of leaves and cornstalks across the road. Once I hit Rt.49, I jogged south a mile and then back east on CR 500 N where I decided to just stop and wait out the rest of the storm. (2:34pm) The winds were probably a sustained 40-50mph for 10 minutes or so. The temperature was dropping rapidly as the windows were starting to fog up. The wind and rain finally let up enough for me to start heading west again and eventually returning home. On the way back, I encountered some tree limbs in the road that I couldn’t drive over, so I got out and removed them from the road. (wasn’t the smartest thing to do while wearing a t-shirt and shorts, brrrrrr!) We listened to the reports of damage on the scanner and learned that the NW part of Champaign had sustained alot of damage from an 80-85mph downburst, not a tornado. I was kind of worried that whatever it was that did the damage might have also damaged our home which is just 1.2 miles SE of the area that was hit. Luckily we returned to find just a few twigs and leaves blown against the place. Whew!

Final thoughts:
Well, I have to say I’m glad I stuck around the area to chase rather than going to Indiana. I didn’t get to see any tornadoes, but the ominous clouds and high straight-line winds were good enough for me. The town of Monticello, IL got nailed pretty hard but thankfully there were no fatalities and very few injuries. The same cannot be said, however, about some of the storms in Indiana. It was really cool though to be able to chase right here in IL in late October. I happened to check the barometer reading from the airport just south of Champaign and we had a reading of 29.29″ at 1pm! I would love to know if it got any lower as the storms slammed the county. I will post updates and damage reports as they become available.

Special Thanks:
I have to thank all the spotter nets out there for doing a superb job today. I’d also like to commend WAND-TV (17) out of Decatur for their quick alerts and radar updates. Good heads up also by the NWS for getting the warnings out when they were needed.

Chase LogAfter glancing at the forecast models and the SPC Day 2 outlook for Saturday, it really didn’t appear likely that this area was going to receive any severe weather. However, when I woke up on Saturday morning, the new Day 1 outlook had shifted the slight risk to include most of IL. The models still didn’t look too impressive, but they are in fact just models. Anyway, I waited around for the new Day 1 outlook to come out around 11:30am to see what the SPC thought of the situation. I was completely taken by surprise when they not only kept us in the slight risk, but had upgraded us to a moderate risk! At first I thought I was either dreaming or someone was playing a very cruel and belated April Fool’s joke on me. However, neither was the case as this was the real deal and the stage was set for severe weather right here in central IL.

As noon rolled around, the SPC issued an MCD outlining an area for a possible tornado watch. Well, just 13 minutes after the MCD was issued, a nifty tornado watch was issued for parts of Central Illinois and Western/Central Indiana. At the same time as the watch was being issued, the first tornado warning went out for Mason county. After watching the storms fire and move in this direction, I debated on which way to go. At first, I wanted to go west and intercept the one supercell as it entered Dewitt county. On the other hand, another cell had formed in McLean county and was looking to clip part of northern Champaign county. Decision time…

I loaded up the gear and headed out just after 1:00pm. As I was making my way to the gas station, my weather radio went off announcing a severe thunderstorm warning for Champaign county. After filling up the gas tank at a painful $1.77 / gallon, I headed west on Springfield Ave. which turned into Rt. 10 as I proceeded out of town. At 1:40pm as I was approaching Rt.47, my weather radio went off again to inform me that a tornado warning had replaced the severe thunderstorm warning that was issued earlier. Once again, it was decision time. Do I go after this storm to my north or do I continue heading west towards the other storm? Well, my gut feeling told me to go north, so I took a right and went north on Rt.47.

The sky continued to become more ominous as I went north. I monitored the spotter net and ESDA frequencies and no one was seeing much of anything in the way of rotation. After winding my way through Mahomet, I jogged back to Rt. 47 and continued north to Rt.136. I saw alot of low hanging scud, but never saw any rotation. I went east on Rt.136 (brings back memories of May 18, 2000!) passing through Fisher, IL and I noticed a bank sign that reported a 67 degree temperature! Brrrr! As I was just a mile or two west of Rantoul, the sky was turning a greenish color, so I knew something was churning up there. While considering my decision on whether to take the highway or a backroad, I saw this red minivan on the side of the road with more antennas than I have. Could that be Blake Naftel from Michigan all the way down here in my neck of the woods? You betcha! Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to stop and finally meet him due to this storm almost right on top of the area. (sorry Blake, maybe next year!!)

I decided to avoid the highway and take Rt. 45 south back towards Champaign. The guy running net control on the spotter net said that there was another cell heading towards Champaign county. At 2:22pm, the weather radio went off again announcing another tornado warning that included Piatt and Champaign counties. I headed into Urbana on Rt.45 and hopped on I-74 and then switched to I-57 south. I got off I-57 at the Monticello/Savoy exit and proceeded west on the Monticello Road (Hwy 18). I went a few miles west and then turned north on CR 600E. (brings back memories of June 4, 1999!) I pulled off the side of the road and got out to take pictures. Once again, I wasn’t seeing any rotation but the cloud structure was really cool looking. I sat there for almost 25 minutes watching it move to my east. While I was standing there, the temperature must have dropped a good 15-20 degrees! (can you say wind chill factor!) Occasionally, I would look straight up and see clouds going one way and other clouds going the opposite way, it was very sweet. I then noticed some sort of spin-up to my east a few miles. My guess is that it was either a gustnado or just some dust getting kicked up. (was just too far away to tell for sure)

After running out of both video and 35mm film, I decided to get back in the car and replenish the supplies. As I was loading the cameras, I heard on the spotter net that another cell was heading towards Champaign county in 20-30 minutes. (yippeeee!) I headed back east on the Monticello road and then decided to go north on Rt.45. As I was turning onto Rt.45, my weather radio goes off with yet another tornado warning for Champaign county. I was also hearing on the spotter net that a tornado had been sighted near Ogden, IL, but I was well south of there at the time. I went a mile north on Rt.45 and then went east on CR 1100N. After hearing the spotter net saying the next cell would prolly be in the southern part of Champaign county, I decided to head south on CR 1200E. I went 10 miles south, then went west on CR 100N, and finally went south again on CR 1150E. Just as I entered Douglas county, my weather radio went off for a tornado warning right here in Douglas county! (somehow in the right place at the right time!)

About a 1/4 mile into Douglas county I pulled off and took a few pictures. I saw an awesome shelf cloud and some dust being blown across the field to my SW. I continued heading south on CR 1150E and then the winds decided to say hello to Stan. Dust was starting to blow across the road and while not blinding, it certainly didn’t want me here. (not exactly sure what the speeds were, but I would estimate 45-55mph) I quickly jogged east a mile on CR 1250N and stopped for a brief second to get a couple stills of this dust/rain combination. Then I jogged south and east a couple miles and finally ended up on CR 1350E. Once again, I pulled off the side of the road and took pictures from inside the car. (it was raining and lightning wasn’t too far behind me!) I noticed some scud to my east that seemed to be rotating, but I’m not sure if it was anything or not. After sitting there for 10 minutes, the wall of wind and rain caught up to me and I decided to get out of there.

I headed south on CR 1350E and then went west on CR 1050N. At this point I was driving right into the wall of rain and wind, so I wasn’t moving more than 20-25mph. As I traveled west, I heard what could have been very small hailstones hit the side of my car, but it didn’t last very long and could just have been the rain pelting the car. At this point the spotter net was winding down and telling everyone to stand down and go home, so that’s what I decided to do too. I headed back north on Rt. 45 just north of Tuscola, IL. Ran through a bunch of rain on my way back to Champaign, but it slowly dissipated as I went north. I arrived back home in Champaign at 4:40pm.

Final thoughts:
This was one of those days where everything came together. I was impressed at how fast everything happened as I’m usually waiting and waiting for stuff to fire. Not only did this stuff fire, but it happened in the early afternoon. (that’s rare around here!!) Excluding my plains chase, this has probably been my best chase of the year. (so far! *grin*) This once again proves that the season doesn’t end on June 30th. It was also really ironic that I was able to chase on the same roads in one day that I previously chased on 2 different days. (June 4, 1999 and May 18, 2000) At least I had my camcorder working this time, where as the ’99 chase my older camcorder died and the ’00 chase I wasn’t able to pan over and get the tornado on film! Only took me 2 years, but at least I had it rolling this time!

While I didn’t come across any tornado touchdowns, I still had an awesome chase day. I’m still amazed at how I managed to avoid the large hail despite there being numerous reports of large hail all around me. Click here for a listing of all the severe weather reports from Central IL. The NWS at Lincoln has also published a damage assessment from these storms which is quite interesting.

Special Thanks:
I’d like to thank mother nature for coming through with a great system in August! My thanks also goes out to the SPC for their quick action in issuing the MCD and Tornado Watch. Finally, I’d like to thank the spotter net and ESDA people for being ready for this round of severe weather. Keep up the great work!!

Chase LogToday far exceeded yesterday’s miserable conditions. Heat indicies throughout IL pushed into the 110′s which made it very uncomfortable and dangerous. I still wasn’t expecting much relief in the way of thunderstorms today, but I figured with the atmosphere as ripe as it was, maybe something would fire. I flipped on radar in the afternoon and noticed a line of showers and thunderstorms making its way across the area. The storms at the time weren’t very strong, but it was still early and I thought that maybe something would happen later. Around 4:00pm, several warnings were issued for Central IL. There were several outflow boundaries across the area and they were starting to clash with each other which was helping to fuel the fire. I debated on whether or not to go west and try to intercept these storms. After watching them on radar, it sort of looked like they were weakening a bit. I decided to stick around and see what happened as they moved closer to home.

I noticed when looking at the radar that there was an outflow boundary in Piatt county that was moving east. This line of storms that had caused all the warnings had also created an outflow boundary which was moving SE. I kept my eye on the Piatt county area waiting for some storms to fire. I did a quick check of estimated CAPE values and they were well into the 5000′s in this area, so I knew if something got going it might really get going. Just before 6:00pm, some storms were starting to fire right on that boundary in Piatt county. (yes!!) Not having anything else better to do, I loaded up the gear and headed south. As I came into the Savoy area, I saw multiple wanna-be funnel clouds. (scud) Then I heard on the scanner that someone reported a funnel cloud in the same area I was in, so I knew what it was. I headed east on Church road in Savoy. I found a very decent spot to view the storm at, so I pulled off the road and took some pictures. The lightning was beginning to get it’s act together and the wind was picking up. The temperature and dewpoint had dropped tremendously which was quite a relief to me. At 6:13pm, NWS issued a severe thunderstorm warning for Piatt and Champaign counties, so I knew this puppy was gaining strength. As the storm approached my location, I decided to head south on CR 1350E.

I continued jogging east and south until I once again encountered Rt. 36 and Rt. 49. At 7:10pm, I went about a mile south of this intersection and pulled off the road. I was about half a mile from this funnel-shaped scud cloud and it appeared to be rotating. I took some video of it for a few minutes and then proceeded south on 49. My main concern at this point was gas. I was about 2 notches above empty and I sure didn’t want to get stuck in the middle of a storm without gas. I continued south on 49 looking for a gas station, but didn’t see any. I decided to head east towards Paris on Rt. 133. As I entered Paris, I saw a gas station. (woo-hoo) As I pulled up to the pump, there was a sticker that said “10% ethanol”. (argh) My car doesn’t like that stuff, so I proceeded east into town and found a Shell station. I filled the tank up and then headed back west on 133. At this point the sky to my west was pitch black and the lightning was getting very vivid.

Not wanting to drive right into it, I headed WSW on Rt. 16 towards Charleston. (wasn’t I just here yesterday??) The lightning now was becoming very frequent and I noticed it getting closer and closer. Just as I entered the town of Kansas, it cut loose with the rain. I had my wipers on the high setting, brights were on and I still couldn’t see. I got about 5 miles east of Charleston and the lightning got real close. I’d never seen it so vivid in my life as I did at this time. Through all the lightning crashes and heavy rain, I heard something beep. I looked over at my camcorder and it had run out of tape!! Unfortunately, this was my last tape so I would have to continue through the lightning field without a record of it. I made up my mind that if I made it into Charleston, I was going to buy some tapes. I entered Charleston around 8:15 and saw a Wal-Mart. Just as I turned into the parking lot, KABAM! A lightning bolt had it just down the street and apparently it took out the power to the store.

I waited the storm out in the parking lot for about 20 minutes. During this time, I got on the HT and talked to N9PLB (Tom) on the local repeater. I told him that Charleston was getting slammed with lightning and heavy rain. It finally let up and I tried to go in the store, but they still didn’t have any power. (argh!!) I had to have some video tape, so I headed west through Charleston and into Mattoon. Not wanting to battle the Wal-Mart superstore traffic, I went to K-Mart and found my tapes. (yay!) There was quite a lightning show now to my SE, but for the life of me, I could not find a decent location to take pictures at due to the darn corn. I finally decided to give that idea up and went to visit my aunt/uncle who lived just a few miles away.

After enjoying some homemade cookies and ice cream with them, I headed back home a little after 11:00pm. On my way home, I saw a little lightning to my NW, but nothing too spectacular. I started flipping around on the radio and was picking up some repeaters that I hadn’t heard before. I pulled up the Indy repeater and was able to key it up on 5 watts, not too shabby. I then ran across a repeater in the Bloomington, IL area that had some traffic on it. I recognized a voice on there and sure enough, it was Keenan from ILCHASE. I talked to him for a little while as I made my way into Champaign. I finally made it home around 12:20pm.

Final thoughts:
Wow is all I can say! I wasn’t really expecting much out of these storms, but they sure packed a punch. The Champaign/Urbana area had numerous reports of power lines down, trees down, and lots of damage due to the straight-line winds. There were a lot of 60mph wind gusts reported with these storms which really surprised me. The lightning I encountered was definitely the most intense I’ve ever seen in my life. I’ll definitely make sure to keep extra video tapes on hand for the next time!

Special Thanks:
I’d like to thank the weather gods for letting me chase for the 2nd straight day in a row! If I get to chase tomorrow, I’ll feel like I’m in Kansas again!

Chase LogOne word to describe today: nasty. The humidity was downright off the charts and even with the A/C on, there wasn’t much relief. There wasn’t much expected in the way of showers and thunderstorms which didn’t help matters either. However, around 12:30pm, a little thunderstorm popped up just south of Champaign. Rather than sweating to death inside, I decided to get in my A/C-lacking vehicle and go check it out. As I got closer to this little cell, the air became a little more reasonable to be around. Unfortunately, this little cell fizzled out and didn’t really do much but cool it off where I was. I saw some more towers to my east, so like a couple other chases this month, I went east on Rt.36. I eventually encountered some rain and a few lightning strikes, but this storm also fizzled out.

Not wanting to go immediately home, I continued east on 36 into Indiana until I encountered a weird detour that sent me to Hwy 63. I decided to go south a little ways until I realized there wasn’t much going on. I headed back west into IL and came into Paris, IL. (I have never seen so many one way streets in my life) After getting lost in Paris for a while and temporarily going the wrong way down a one-way street, I found Rt. 16 and headed west towards Charleston. After a quick drive-by my now Alma Matter, I headed back to Champaign on I-57. I got back home around 4:30pm and figured the chase day was over.

After watching a very interesting Weakest Link which featured some of the Survivor castaways, I flipped on radar and noticed a decent line of storms to my NE. My email program then notified me of a severe thunderstorm warning for Iroquois county (which is the county directly NE of Champaign) Not wanting to miss out on some decent lightning, I decided to give it a shot. I headed north on I-57 and noticed just how hazy it was. As I proceeded north, I wasn’t seeing too much in the way of lightning or cloud structure due to the haze. Once I got past Rantoul, it definitely started to get interesting. At 8:15pm, I got off at the Paxton exit and proceeded east to Rt. 9. I was finally starting to see some lightning to my ENE which got me going. The weather radio wasn’t impressing me when it said the warning had expired and no new warnings had been issued. I still continued to go east until I reached Rankin. It now looked like the storm was getting much closer to me, so I decided to head south on Hwy 49.

I approached the Hwy 49/Rt. 136 intersection and noticed the lightning really increase in intensity and frequency, yet I continued south. This storm was definitely moving faster than I thought and was closing in fast, so I turned around and headed back towards Rt 136. I then headed west on 136 towards Rantoul, all while the lightning kept closing in behind me. As I entered Rantoul, it appeared like I’d finally gotten ahead of the storm, so maybe I could finally stop and take a few pictures. I got on the 442.250 repeater in Decatur and got ahold of KB9ZDM who told me that there was just a little cell in NE Champaign county. (I figured that was the one that had been chasing me)

I kept going west on 136 through Rantoul and eventually turned north on CR 1200 E. I went a couple of miles and was about to setup for a few shots when it started pouring. (you could see that one coming!) I headed back south on that road and that’s when my tape ran out. So I sat at the intersection of 136 and 1200E changing tapes when BAM, a strike hits just a few miles behind me. (here we go again) Once I got the new tape loaded, I headed back east on 136 and then jumped south on I-57 and headed back home. After a few minutes of heavy rain, I finally got away from the storm. It started dying at this point, so I just called it and went home. I arrived home at 9:45 and I could finally say the chase day was over!

Final thoughts:
Well, chasing twice in one day was pretty interesting. The storms in the evening were alot better than the dinky ones during the afternoon. I’d never chased up in that area before, so it was kinda nifty to be up there. (the terrain wasn’t too shabby either) At least the storms brought a little relief to the areas that they affected.

Special Thanks:
Once again, thanks to the weather gods for bringing some cool stuff to the area. (well, maybe ‘cool’ isn’t the right word to use)

Chase LogLooking at the US Threats Assessments page last week, it appeared that this week could potentially produce some severe weather in this neck of the woods. The morning Day 1 outlook was showing a slight risk of severe weather in W. IL, but at that time it didn’t appear to reach into Central IL. The models were forecasting very unstable conditions, however, across the state. I knew if something could fire it would probably go severe.

At 1:38pm, an MCD was issued that included West Central IL. This peaked my curiosity and when I loaded up radar, there were already some storms firing up in that area. 20 minutes later they issued a severe thunderstorm watch for that same area and even a bit further to include the counties due west of me. After watching the storms on radar for a while to see what they were doing, I decided to make a go of it and see if I could intercept them. I picked out Springfield, IL as my target area, loaded up the gear and headed out at 3:00pm. I proceeded west on I-72 which would take me right to Springfield with no problems.

As I headed into the Decatur area, I called George (N9IPO) to find out a weather update. He was mobile at the time, but another ham jumped in who had access to radar and informed me that the storms were still strong and heading SE. I continued on I-72 towards Springfield and noticed it getting darker to my west. I flipped on the weather radio for updates and the current conditions came on and really shocked me. Temp: 92, Dewpoint: 77, Heat Index: 105! Yowsers!

I entered into Springfield around 4:15pm. Skies were still dark but I couldn’t make out any features due to the haze. I decided to hop on HW 97 and go north of town. (not the smartest idea given the time of day) As I made my way through traffic, I finally made it north of town. As I came up to a hill, the skies became greenish-gray and I knew something was gonna cut loose. Realizing I was going north and the storms were heading south, I decided to head east to get away from the storms. I saw somewhat of a lowering, but due to the trees, corn, and traffic, I couldn’t confirm if it was a wall cloud or just some scud. (couldn’t get any pictures either!)

I finally found a spot where I thought I was gonna be safe for a few minutes to get pictures, but then I noticed the lightning just a few miles away. Darn! I took a quick glance at the GPS and found a south road that would take me back to HW 97. The lightning seemed to be increasing and getting closer to me which made me feel like I was being chased. When I made it back to HW 97, I decided not to get on that road and continue going south. I kept going south and eventually got on Old Jacksonville Rd. which took me east into Springfield. As I came back into Springfield, it really got ugly. The weather radio went off announcing a severe thunderstorm warning for Sangamon county, exactly where I was. (hey, at least I was in the right spot this time!) *grin*

Around 5:15pm, it cut loose. Very heavy rainfall reduced visability to almost nothing and the lightning was popping all around. As I was waiting for one of the lights to turn green, I saw a flash of lightning hit something on the right side of the street just up the road. (when I say just up the road, I’m talking like one block if that) It was an instantaneous flash/boom which was quite exhilirating and scary at the same time. At this point, I unplugged some of my gear that had external antennas because this stuff was just too close for my comfort.

The lightning apparently took out some power because numerous stoplights were now flashing red which backed up traffic. (so much for ‘rush’ hour) I slowly proceeded south on RT 4 trying to get back to I-72. While I was waiting, I could see some lightning off to my east. I finally made my way back on I-72 around 5:45pm and headed east towards Decatur. I got ahold of George again and told him of my storm encounter. He stopped me for a minute and told me he was getting out of his vehicle to take pictures of some mammatus clouds. (he always finds mammatus) Not to be left out, I looked around me and by golly, there were the mammatus. I hopped off at the Mechanicsburg exit and pulled off on a really crappy dirt road (with puddles) and took some stills and video of these mammatus. I also saw some cloud to cloud lightning but it was very sparse and not too spectacular. (still nifty though)

Since all the storms were well south of the area and nothing building to the west, I decided to find something to eat. I gave George another call on the radio and asked him if he wanted to meet up at Steak and Shake for a snack. He too was hungry, so he agreed to meet me at the SnS. Another ham, Jason (KB9URM) jumped in there and informed us that he was hungry, so he met us there too. He beat both of us there and even called us on the radio asking us what we wanted to drink, how’s that for utilizing the power of ham radio!

After we finished eating, I decided to head back home. There were a few towers to our NE, but they didn’t amount to anything. As I came back into Champaign, the sky was a very orange/gray color. I finally pulled into the driveway at 8:30pm.

Final thoughts:
While I didn’t get to take as many pictures as I wanted, I still considered this a very decent chase. The intense lightning and the long-lived mammatus clouds was good enough for my needs. I will have to figure out a way to get around some of these construction areas in the future as the past couple of chases have been hampered by them.

Special Thanks:
I’d like to thank George and all of the hams in the Decatur area who provided me with enjoyable conversation and radar updates. Also, many thanks to George and Jason for meeting me at SnS for the victory steak, steakburger that is. (hey, it’s good stuff and cheaper than a regular steak!)

Chase LogWhile some people considered the chase season to end in the month of June, I felt that it was just starting to fire up. Looking at the morning Day 1 outlook revealed most of IL under a slight risk. After looking at the models, I felt that it was a very slight chance of anything severe firing. I waited around for the 16:30z Day 1 outlook to come out before I made any plans. Sure enough, they had moved the slight risk to include just a sliver of eastern IL. It still included the central and southern parts of IN, which meant that I would still probably chase. Just around noon, Rob Stout (INCHASE) popped online and I asked him if he wanted to chase or at least nowcast for me. I told him I would head towards the Terre Haute area and go from there.

I departed Champaign at 12:30pm and headed south on Rt.45 to Tuscola. From there, I proceeded east on Rt. 36 towards Indiana. Around 1:45pm as I was heading through the little town of Hume, IL., I noticed a few lightning strikes to my ESE. Just after this, I talked to Tom (N9PLB) and Dale (W9JY) on the 444.925 repeater in Mattoon. I informed them that I was heading towards the Terre Haute area to chase some storms. From Mattoon, they told me that it looked real omnious to their NE, which is what I was seeing to my ESE. The repeater started getting weaker, so I said goodbye and continued east on 36 into Indiana. (found out that it was only putting out 5 watts of power, which is quite amazing seeing how far I was from the repeater!)

Around 2:30pm, I received a call on the cell phone from Rob informing me that these storms weren’t doing anything and didn’t look to intensify. I had a feeling that this would happen, but I continued to chase anyways. I asked Rob since I was somewhat in his area if he wanted me to stop by for a little while. He said ‘come on over’, so I got directions and headed that way. I arrived at his house around 3:30pm and determined from looking at radar that he was right in that the storms were all moving south and didn’t look to reach severe levels. Rob dug out one of his chase videos that he had (one of Warren Faidley’s tapes) and we watched that to pass some time. When that was over, we noticed this horse race on TV. The reason I point this out is because one of the horses was named “Arizona Storm”. (I know, we’re crazy!) I’m not sure if it was that horse or another one, but one of them had 99-1 odds of winning, which we both couldn’t believe. After that was over, we went outside and I showed Rob some of my gadgets and radios. In an attempt to demonstrate ham radio, I punched in the 146.970 repeater out of Indianapolis and called Chad (KB9WXQ). Of course, he didn’t respond so it didn’t do too well for demonstrating it to Rob, but I think he got the idea!

While we were outside, Rob’s 4 kids came out and started playing catch. Not wanting to feel left out, I dug out my old baseball glove in the back of the car and got in on the action. We played for quite awhile and I can’t remember how many times they hit the side of my van with the ball. (thank goodness we were using a tennis ball!) After that was over with, Rob wanted to know if I would stay for dinner. Having heard how much this man loves to cook, I wasn’t about to pass this up. Noticing they were out of a few ingredients, Rob and I decided to run into town and pick up the goods. I took my HT with me hoping to hit the Indy repeater again, but I being 50 miles away from Indy and without an external antenna, I just couldn’t do. (I just don’t have the power, captain!!!)

We got back to the house around 9:00pm and he started cooking the yummies. During this time, we decided to watch “The Nutty Professor”. That movie had everyone crying from laughing so much, totally hilarious movie. Then we decided to watch the sequel, which was equally if not more hilarious than the first one. During the 2nd movie, we started chowing down on some awesome food. We had big baked potatoes, salad, and yes, STEAK! (sorry Aunt Meg, but no eggs this time!) Rob’s reputation as a cook definitely panned out (no pun intended) as the food was fabulous. His oldest daughter decided to bake us some brownies for dessert, which were very good.

After the second movie was over, I decided that I’d better start heading back home. After saying my goodbyes, I left his house around 2:00am. I took the same route back home except instead of Rt.45, I took I-57 to get home just a bit quicker. I pulled in my driveway at 4:30am. *yawn*

Final thoughts:
Well, despite the weather busting on me, I had a heck of a time. After talking to Rob online and several times on the phone, it was great to finally meet him.

Special Thanks:
Huge thanks goes out to Rob and his family for being such gracious hosts! Good food, good company, lots of fun. Every chaser should have a friend like Rob! You da man Rob!

Chase LogAfter being teased by numerous systems over the past few weeks, it finally appeared that central IL would get some severe weather today. The Day 1 outlook was showing a slight risk for central and southern IL, which was a good sign. We started out with mostly sunny skies for much of the morning, with a few whispy cirrus clouds to the west. I started noticing some small cumulus showing up on the satellite map all across IL so I knew something was in the works. At 1:04pm, the SPC issued an MCD regarding possible initation of storms in the next few hours. This really got me going and I decided to go get the vehicle ready just in case.

After a few hours of waiting, not much was going on. There was little dinky cell over by Danville, but it wasn’t anywhere clsoe to severe. Around 4:30pm, storms slowly started firing across central IL. Once again, they weren’t severe, but they did show some promise. Finally, at 5:13pm, my nifty weather radio went off announcing a severe thunderstorm warning for Vermilion and Edgar county in IL. (these are the counties that are directly to my east and southeast respectively.) Radar was showing some decent cells over there, but at the time, I wasn’t wanting to intercept the storms from the west and north. Well, at 6:17, the trusty weather radio went off again informing me of another severe thunderstorm warning, this time for Douglas and Champaign county (where I am located). That was enough for me as I wasn’t going to wait for it to get any closer to me.

I loaded up the gear and departed at 6:30pm. As I was leaving, I got a call on the cell phone from my good ol’ chase buddy Darin. (I had just turned my cell phone on too!!) He told me that he was also enroute to these storms and hopefully we would meet up somewhere. (though that never happened) I headed south on RT. 45 and passed through the town of Pesotum. Just south of town, I noticed this nifty little rainbow in front of me. After taking a few pictures, I proceeded south to Tuscola where I then intersected Rt. 36 and went east. This rainbow was still very visible and getting even brighter as I continued to approach it. I decided to hop off 36 just east of Camargo so I could find a decent non-traffic area to snap some more pics of this rainbow. (1150N/1875E) After taking both video and stills of this rainbow and other cloud structures, I headed back south to Rt. 36 to continue my eastward journey.

As I entered the town of Chrisman, IL, I could tell I was getting much closer to these storms. I wasn’t sure if I should continue east or go south a bit and then jog back east. That decision was made for me when about a mile east of Chrisman. I saw some lightning that I was alot closer to than I should have been. Anyways, I turned around and headed south on Rt. 150. I continued south on 150 till I decided I needed to go east again. I found the Horace Brocton Rd (what happened to short little county road numbers??!) and went east. After going a couple miles on this road, I decided I still needed to go south a bit, so I hopped on some unmarked county road and took a 5 mile jog south. I eventually made my way to Hwy 163 which led me into Indiana. (yes, this is my first chase into Indiana) I took 163 until it split into Rt. 41 N/S.

I decided to take the north option and attempt to catch up with the storms. I could occasionally see some CC lightning which brought back memories of the lightning from the plains chase. (not nearly as spectacular though) As I proceeded on Rt. 41, it appeared as if I was heading into a giant forest. I’ve never seen so many darned trees in my life! Along with the tree issue, the road was constantly winding one way or another, so it felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere! As I was taking this little ‘walk in the woods’, I started tuning around on the ham rig looking for spotter networks. I started receiving the statewide weather net out of Indianapolis on 146.970. (it was coming in pretty well for where I was too) Despite being able to listen in to the net, I wasn’t hearing many severe weather reports at the time. I finally made it out of the woods and intersected I-74 and headed back to Champaign. After stopping for a quick snack at McD’s, I arrived home around 10:30pm.

Final thoughts:
Well, despite the late start at chasing, I didn’t do too shabby. I would have liked to have gotten some lightning shots, but the rainbow and sunset will do me just fine. The video capture, despite it being nifty, doesn’t do the rainbow justice. I hope the still shots bring out more of the vibrant colors of this long-lived rainbow! (yes, I chased a rainbow from Illinois to Indiana!!)

Special Thanks:
I’d once again like to thank my chasemobile for surviving another chase this year. Maybe we’ll get him some oil and a little more air to make him feel appreciated!

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 LogAfter being in a slight risk for the past several days and having nothing happen, I wasn’t too optimistic about today’s chances. The cap had been so strong that nothing was able to get going. However, in the early morning Area Forecast Discussion out of Lincoln (ILX), they were mentioning the cap being weaker today. That definitely gave me some hope that storms would develop in the area. There definitely wasn’t any problem with daytime heating as the sky was clear and blue. Dewpoints were in the mid 60s and temps reached up into the 90s across IL. (95 in Champaign) The data from the 12z ILX sounding was showing some decent helicity/wind shear values, but the models were forecasting that to decrease throughout the day which greatly reduced the tornado threat. Regardless, I was still excited at the possibility of storms forming.

By mid-afternoon, nothing was happening in IL. All the activity was way over in Indiana. The 20z Day 1 outlook still had us in a slight risk, so I knew something had to be brewing. Looking at visible satellite data confirmed that the cap was trying to break due to the small cumulous clouds that had started stretching across Illinois and Indiana. At 2:40pm, the SPC issued an MCD for parts of IL/IN to point out a possible area for a weather watch. About 25 minutes later, my weather radio goes off informing me of a severe thunderstorm watch till 8pm. At this point, I’m really started to get anxious about storms firing. So around 4pm, storms started to fire up just north of Terre Haute, Indiana. It appeared as if they would fire along the line of cumulus that stretched into IL, but that wasn’t to be the case. The storms near Terre Haute were not moving much at all and they were dropping very heavy rains in that area.

I had been chatting with Rob Stout from INCHASE all afternoon. He was telling me that he could see these storms from his location, which is about 50 miles ESE of Terre Haute. I looked out my window towards the ESE and sure enough I could see towers building in that direction. We both continued to watch this storm churn over the same area for quite awhile. Another batch of storms had also formed near Lafayette and were moving SSE. Around 6:50, I decided to go out in the backyard and see if I could snap a few pictures of these incredible cells from my location in Champaign. There were just too many buildings/trees to really get a good look at these things, so I decided to go out and see if I could get a better shot. I loaded up all my gear and headed east on I-74. I got off at the St. Joesph exit and proceeded to drive out into the country to get an unobstructed view of these towers.

When I found a good clear spot, I pulled over and started taking pictures. This was the first time I’d even used my new SLR camera, so I definitely wanted to get some shots for some experience. After using just about the whole roll of film, I put the still camera away and got out the camcorder. I shot about 10 minutes worth of video of these cells from the west side of them. They looked very spectacular with the way the sun was shining on them. I should have just stayed there as it got dark and I probably could have gotten some really good lightning shots, but I decided the towers were good enough for me. I headed back home to Champaign and arrived around 8pm.

Final thoughts:
While I didn’t really see any storm activity, the view I got from the backside of the storms was worth everything. It was also a good chance to experiment with my still camera and see how well the cloud pictures come out. After being chaseless for over a month, it was good to see some good convection again! It looks like tomorrow could bring another chance of severe weather, so maybe we’ll get some more chances to chase!

Special Thanks:
I’d like to thank mother nature for finally bringing us some convection! (Maybe next time it won’t take so long to come around my neck of the woods!)

Chase LogBefore I went to bed on Tuesday night, the SPC Day 2 was showing a moderate risk for NW IL and then a slight risk for the rest of the state. After being in a slight risk for the past several days, I didn’t think much of it at first. When I woke up, the 13z Day 1 outlook was still showing a moderate risk for NW IL.

When I got back from class at 11am, I was reading through my emails and noticed an MCD for parts of E.IA/NE.MO/NW.IL stating that the SPC was going up grade this area to a high risk. My jaw dropped when I saw this and I immediately began looking at all the weather data I could find. The updated Day 1 outlook did indeed reveal the upgrade to high risk. Scott Kampas (KB9VVP) popped online and he was telling me that he would probably target the Galesburg/Quad Cities area. Not wanting to drive that far, I decided my target area would be Macomb, IL which is SW of Galesburg.

After making sure I had all my gear, I loaded it into the car and headed out around 1pm. I took Rt. 121 to Decatur where I stopped to eat lunch with George (N9IPO), a storm spotter/chaser in Macon county. (nothing like a steakburger to get ya going for a chase) On the way up there, I received a call from good ol’ Chad Gard from INCHASE. He gave me a quick weather update and I told him I would be heading to the Macomb area.

After lunch, I headed west towards Springfield on I-72. On the way over, I made contact with my dad on the 146.985 repeater in Clinton. He gave me a quick radar update on the way over, but it still wasn’t producing anything severe. When I got to Springfield, I decided to call Blake Naftel and see where he was. I believe he said he was near Leroy, IL and was targeting Table Grove, IL. (SE of Macomb) I told him that I would meet him up there and go from there.

I departed Springfield at 4:30pm and headed west on Hwy. 97. I started running into some heavy rain and wind, but it definitely wasn’t anything to write home about. (why’d you mention it then?) I finally intercepted Rt. 136 near U.S. 24 at 5:45pm. The clouds were starting to disappear and make way for a sunny afternoon. I continued west on Rt. 136 and made it into Table Grove at 6:00pm. After a quick pit stop, I headed a few miles north of town and stopped out in the country to take a look at the sky. I decided to call Blake again to see where he was. Unfortunately, he was west of Dietrich, IL and wasn’t going to continue towards my location due to the ‘major bust’. His cell phone battery was dying on him, so I let him go and pondered what to do next. I rolled down the window and noticed it was much cooler and dryer, indicating to me that the cold front had already passed through. I was a bit disappointed at this point and decided to make the trek back home.

On my way home, I started seeing some cells off to my east. I couldn’t tell if they were new cells or dying cells, but they did look somewhat impressive. [multiple cells picture] (North of Kilbourne, IL looking East) Using the camcorder remote control, I carefully zoomed in on one of them while driving down the road. (don’t try this at home!) [zoomed-in cell picture] I tried to go after them for a little bit, but they were just too far away so I gave up that idea. I went back through Springfield and was going to fill up the gas tank, but they wanted $1.93 / gallon for the premium. I decided that I had enough to get me to Decatur, where I thought it would be cheaper. WRONG! [gas prices picture] I ended up spending $30 to fill up my tank, something that I hadn’t had to do since last year. ARGH! Anyways, as I was getting back in my car, I heard the sound of screetching of tires behind me. I spin around and the 2 cop cars that were there go chasing after this guy. Of course, my camcorder wasn’t rolling, otherwise it would of been quite nifty. (needless to say, I got the heck out of there.)

On my way back down Rt. 121 towards Mattoon/Charleston, I started seeing lightning to my SE. It was way off in the distance, so there was no photographic possibilities. I finally arrived back in Charleston at 10:45pm. Powered on my computer and had over 200 emails, most of them weather related!

Final thoughts:
Well, I was really hoping this high risk would pan out today. Sometimes you have better luck with a slight risk than you do with a high risk. High risks seem to be make or break. If they make, you end up with a severe outbreak. If they break, well, you get sunny skies and a lot of frustrated chasers. I was really hoping to finally meet Blake Naftel, but the weather just didn’t cooperate with us. Maybe we’ll get another chance later in the season.

As for warnings, I never did hear of any for IL. It looks like Iowa got the outbreak and unfortunately there was at least one confirmed death and lots of damage. Once again, you have to remember to keep stuff in perspective and respect the non-chasers. Chasers never want to see people hurt/killed or see houses and other buildings destroyed. No one can control the weather, we just have to live with it. My thoughts and prayers go out to those people in Iowa who lost loved ones or incurred property damage.

Special Thanks:
I’d like to thank Blake Naftel and Chad Gard for the information updates and the short chats. Also like to thank my dad for the QSOs/weather updates throughout the chase.

Chase LogAfter a disappointing day/night of waiting on Monday, I decided to go to bed around 1am. The storms that were moving in from Missouri had loss their strength and we just ended up with a little lightning and some gusty winds. So while I’m dreaming of better chase days, I suddenly wake up to the sound of my weather radio blaring off. At first, I figured it was a flood watch/warning, not a severe thunderstorm warning. When the warning came on, it not only was a severe thunderstorm warning, but it was for Coles county! I quickly powered on the computer and loaded up radar and sure enough, there was this nice little cell heading up towards me.

I grabbed my gear and headed out about 8:35am. I headed south out of Charleston on Rt.130. Wasn’t too much activity other than some rain and occasional lightning. After passing through Greenup, I continued going south on Rt.130. At 9:01am, the weather radio went off again with a severe thunderstorm warning for Jasper county. Just a few minutes after the warning went off, I entered Jasper county. (not bad eh?) About a minute after entering Jasper county, the storm let loose with the rain. Visibility was reduced dramatically and I had to slow down in order to see where the heck I was going. As the rain let up, I heard and saw one little hailstone smack the front window. At first, I was like ‘oh no, here we go, trying to be like Keenan now!’. Luckily, that was the only hail I encountered, falling from the sky anyways.

I made my way into Newton around 9:20am and continued south on Rt.130. About 4 miles south of Newton, I started seeing some really low fog. (fog? I see fog all the time Stan, what’s so different about this fog?) Well, this fog occured due to the melting of the hail accumulation. [hail-fog picture] Not only did I notice the obvious fog, but I also noticed little clumps of hail on the side of the road and also scattered throughout the fields. (if you look on the left side of the road in the picture, you can see these hail clumps!) After my encounter with the hail-fog, I started seeing cloud features of a storm to my east. [cloud picture] There was alot of scud, but next to the rain shaft was a possible wall cloud. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to zoom in on this and study it closer so I’ll never know if it was a wall cloud or just scud. (look at the left-most lowering)

Around 9:50am I made my way into Olney, IL and continued going south until I heard the weather radio go off yet again. This time it was a severe thunderstorm warning for Lawrence county, which was just to my east. I headed back towards Olney and then went east on US 50. I started surfing around on the radio and found a spotter network somewhere over in Indiana, but they weren’t reporting too much. (good to hear the net activated though) After trying to catch up with the storm and not having any luck, I decided to abort this storm and head back home.

As I headed back through Newton, I decided to surf around and see if I could hit any repeaters. I kerchunked the 442.250 repeater in Decatur, IL and it came up pretty well. I gave a shout out to a friend of mine over there and he responded. At first, I was running full power (35 watts), but seeing the signal strength, I decided to drop it down to low power (5 watts). When I came back to him, he said that I sounded just fine and was booming into the repeater. After looking at the map, Newton is 70+ miles (as the crow flies) from Decatur. At the same time, Scott (KB9VVP) over in Pekin was also able to receive this repeater from 60 miles away! Pretty nifty band opening if you ask me! Anyways, I didn’t see much on the way back home other than some light rain. Got back to Charleston around 11:40am and finally got to see some radar. More storms were starting to move in from Missouri, triggering more warnings in the same areas I was just in earlier.

Final thoughts:
Well, I must say, after the countless disappointing chances we’ve had this year, this little chase finally broke the streak. It was really good to get back out there and see storms again! I also found out there’s still a few things I need to prepare for next time, but I’ll be ready to go. It was also really cool to know that there were spotters nets active in the area I was in. (I wish I could say that about southern IL)

BTW, SDS can kiss my …

Special Thanks:
Hmmmm. I’d like to thank my weather radio for waking my butt up this morning. Had it not been for the alert, I never would have chased this morning. (probably still be asleep too!)

Chase LogWhile some people prefer to spend their spring break in Cancun or Florida, I’d rather spend it right here in IL. (well, not really, but I don’t have the $$$ to go on vacation) Anyways, what would be more fitting than to be able to chase right here in IL during spring break? I had joked around with the idea for quite awhile, but I never figured that it would really happen.

After going over the models on Sunday evening, I decided that if they held true, southern IL would be an ideal target area. I went to bed early and woke up at 3 am. While I wanted to get up a bit earlier than normal, 3 am is not what I had in mind. As I constantly yawned, I flipped on the computer and loaded up the Day 1 outlook which had been updated at midnight. That outlook showed a slight risk stretching from just south of Chicago across central and southern IL. Based on the models that I had looked at, I thought that the SPC was pushing the slight risk area just a bit too far north. I poured over the weather data while watching TWC very early in the morning. The 7:00 am Day 1 outlook finally came out and they had moved the slight risk to a more resonable area which just included southern IL. From that and the model data, I decided to make my target area Mt. Vernon, IL. Like the February 24th chase, there were a ton of clouds in the state. Looking at the satellite loops, it appeared that this time the clouds were being penetrated by the sun.

I waited around all morning closely monitoring the weather situation. I was hoping that the SPC would issue a watch for southern IL or at least a mesoscale discussion. I did hang around to catch the 2:00pm Day 1 outlook and it still showed Southern IL in a slight risk. After looking one more time at the satellite loop, I decided that I would go ahead and head south towards my target area of Mt. Vernon. So after programming the GPS, I loaded up my gear and headed south on I-57 from Champaign around 2:30pm. Judging from the fog and clouds in this area, I thought I never would see the sun. However, once I got around the Mattoon area, the sun slowly started to break through and I was starting to see some clearing to my southwest.

Around 4:00pm and just about 20 miles north of Salem, I talked to a fellow ham, Tom (N9PLB), on the Toldeo (442.300) repeater. I was almost out of range of this repeater, but was able to hear Tom tell me that there still wasn’t anything showing up on radar down south. At 4:25pm, I made a stop at the rest stop just south of Salem. After grabbing a snack, I turned on my TV and attempted to find a station that was showing weather information, but there wasn’t any. As I was chowing down on my bag of potato skins, I looked out the window and saw this squirrel rummaging around in the parking lot for food. I took a chip out of the bag and flung it out the window towards the squirrel. After seeing this, the squirrel ran over and grabbed the chip and chowed down. I gave him a couple more chips while I grabbed my video camera and took some pictures of this silly creature. (see Chad, I take care of the animals on my chases..)

ANYWAYS… I departed the rest area around 4:45pm and continued south on I-57. I reached my original target area of Mt. Vernon at 5pm, but decided to just keep going south. I figured at this point, if anything was going to develop it’d be a bit further south. I continued south on I-57 and reached Marion, IL at 5:40pm. I kept monitoring the ham repeaters and NOAA WX radio, but I still wasn’t hearing anything about any thunderstorm activity. Once again, I continued south on I-57. At 6:00pm, I stopped off at another rest area about 7 miles east of Jonesboro. Since it was news time, I turned on the TV and searched for some weather informtion. I found KFVS-12 CBS out of Cape Girardeau, Missouri. They were about to end their newscast but a severe thunderstorm had developed over in Missouri. Radar showed it moving ENE, so if it stayed together, it would eventually get to IL. I also caught another station showing this line of storms that had just formed and were moving into IL.

I decided that I was going to head back north. I left the rest area around 6:35 and headed south a couple of miles to the nearest exit where I could turn around and head north. I got off at mile marker 30 exit and stopped off at the Shell to get some gas. After filling up, I headed back north on I-57. I scanned through the NOAA WX frequencies and found one in Missouri that was mentioning a few severe thunderstorm warnings. I started seeing some clouds light up from lightning, but couldn’t see any strikes. At this point, I decided to head home and hopefully I’d be able to follow one of the storms back. Apparently, I was too far in front of the storms which is why I didn’t see much. I finally arrived back to Champaign around 10:15pm.

Final thoughts:
While this was the 2nd bust in the last 3 weeks, I still enjoyed the chase. It was nice to just drive across the state and at least explore some of the scenery. (ok, so it’s not tropical island type scenery, but it works for me.) I think if I had waited a little while down south, I could of seen the line of storms pass over. None of them went severe in IL and no watches were ever issued. There was one MCD issued for Southern IL around 6:13pm, but I didn’t have access to it until after I got home. On another note: my newly installed TV proved to be a decent asset on this chase, though I should look into getting an external antenna for it.

One thing that frustrated me on this chase was the weather data at the rest areas. All of the rest areas I went to had these DTN weather centers there, but they were a good 2-3 hours old. Why do they even bother to put these weather monitors in the rest areas if they can’t provide updated information. I’m not sure if this is a DTN issue or if it’s a state of IL issue, but something needs to be done about it.

Special Thanks:
I’d like to thank my vehicle for running smoothly during this chase. I wasn’t sure that I’d even get to chase without going in someone else’s car this year, but it seems that the tune-up it got the other day really fixed the problem.

Chase LogWell, it’s been a long off-season and the SDS is almost too unbearable! After last year’s dismal chase season, this year brings new anticipation and excitement. It also gives everyone a chance to improve on their mistakes from last year. Whatever the case may be, I’m ready for spring and ready to see what awesome spectacles that mother nature is going to dish out.

After watching all the forecast models over the past week and a half, it looked like Saturday would be the best chance for severe weather in IL. A few days before, TWC decided to make up this graphic that had the words ‘severe outbreak’ slapped across part of the midwest. While I feel that the word outbreak might have been a bit extreme, I still felt that something could develop out of this. Despite it being a Saturday, I decided to make the sacrifice and get up around 6:30am to check weather data. *yawn* When the 7:00am Day 1 outlook came out, it had the southern half of IL in a slight risk and just to the SW of IL there was a moderate risk of severe weather. After checking that, I pulled up some radar and satellite maps to see what it was looking like. The satellite loops were one of my main concerns because there was a ton of clouds and they didn’t seem to be burning off or moving away. I did notice a little bit of clearing in southern IL, but it didn’t continue that pattern for very long.

I received an email from Chad Gard (INCHASE) saying that him and Joe were heading this way and were going to stop here at EIU and check the data. While I was waiting for him, I constantly monitored the weather conditions and waited on possible watches to be issued. I also checked the Special Weather Statements from Lincoln and St. Louis to see what they thought about the situation. Lincoln stated that the main risk in IL would probably be damaging straight-line winds. St. Louis mentioned that their greatest risk would once again be damaging straight-line winds, but large hail could also be a problem too. Both also mentioned the fact that the storms would probably be in the form of a squall line instead of supercells. While not the greatest thing to chase, I thought that some isolated cells might form ahead of the main line.

Chad and Joe arrived here around 12:30 P.M. and we started checking data and tried to figure out a target area. I was thinking somewhere in the St. Louis area since it was close to the moderate risk. Chad was thinking somewhere SE of St. Louis, that way we wouldn’t get into any traffic congestion and there would hopefully be some good flat areas. We finally decided on Pinckneyville to be our target area because of the road network in and around the area. After remembering that Scott and Keenan were heading to St. Louis, I decided to call Scott on his cell phone and see if he wanted to venture a bit further to the SE of St. Louis and converge on Pickneyville. Scott and Keenan agreed to meet us down there and we’d go from there.

To conserve money and gas, we all decided to pile into Chad’s lovely new car and head out. I brought some of my gear along, which included 2 antennas in addition to the 2 that were already on Chad’s trunk. Minutes after getting on I-57, my scanner antenna decided that it didn’t like its new home and consequently flew off. We quickly pulled over and rescued the little fella and put him safely inside to protect from further humiliation and damage. Anyways, once we got going again we drove south on I-57 all the way down to Rt. 154 and went west towards Pinckneyville. Throughout the voyage down there, it pretty much remained mostly cloudy with just a few glimpses of sunlight. We finally arrived in Pinckneyville and gave Scott a call on the ham rig. He surprised us by coming back to us and telling us that they had just come into Pinckneyville and would be at our location in a matter of minutes. So imagine 5 chasers, 2 vehicles loaded with antennas and gear sitting in front of a Casey’s in this small town. (I think we scared the lady working inside!)

We sat there for a while monitoring the radios and sky with nothing much going on. There was a Severe Thunderstorm Watch issued for parts of Missouri and Illinois (the part we were in), but nothing had gone severe yet. Scott attempted to locate some weather data on his TV, but all he could find was golf and some cooking show. I decided to give John Jensen (SCOA) a call on my cell to get some information. After talking with him, we decided to sit tight and wait for something to develop. He called us back after a while and informed us that a couple cells had rapidly developed to our west and were moving NE. We all got excited and jumped in the cars and headed that way and tried to intercept the storms.

We headed west on 154 until we reached the town of Sparta. We decided to head north on 4 and then zig zag back east a bit. When we did this, we ended up turning down this road which ended up to be a long driveway. This was hilarious because we had all this technology (2 GPS navigation systems and a detailed road map) and we still ended up on the wrong road. “It’s like Bob’s road.” Anyways, once we got back on track, we headed north on 153 for quite a ways until we reached Rt. 15. Heading east on 15, we entered the town of Nashville. (yes, Illinois, not Tennessee) From there, we headed north on 127 watching the skies as we did. We weren’t seeing much since it was dark, but occasionally we’d see a few lightning strikes.

We stopped in Carlyle at the McD’s to check on data again. I called John again and he told me that alot of it was dying out but we still could probably get some good lightning. We headed north to 1800N and sat there and watched it rain. (why Chad decided to roll down my window instead of his still remains to be seen) We saw some lightning, but it really wasn’t that impressive or frequent. Once again, we headed back to 127 and went north hoping to see something a bit better. John called us back again and informed us that there was a new Severe Thunderstorm Watch that included parts of Southern IL. We were well north of the watch area and with it getting late, we decided to shut it down and head for home. After saying our goodbyes, Chad, Joe, and I headed east on I-70 at Greenville.

On our way back to Charleston, we noticed the lightning becoming a bit more frequent. The rain was very persistent throughout the trip home, though the Rain-X that Chad had on his window was working very well. We got into Charleston a little before 10:00pm CST and I unloaded all my gear. After a quick bathroom break, Chad and Joe headed home to Indy.

Final thoughts:
Well, despite the chase being a bust weather-wise, it was really good to finally meet Chad, Joe, and Keenan. It was great to get back out there and give it a whirl after months of non-severe weather. I think we all learned something and it was definitely good practice for what hopes to be a very active season. I think the best quote of the day by everyone in the group was “It’s February.” Had this been April/May, the storms probably would have been much more intense and severe. We did notice that the NOAA Weather Radio coverage was superb throughout the chase. (we could pick up multiple transmitters even without an external antenna.) The amateur radio coverage, however, was pretty much non-existant in that area. The only repeater I could hit was the one in Carbondale and even then I didn’t hear any SKYWARN or spotter nets. Had there been severe weather to report, we would have been limited to the cell phone. (and even then, the coverage drops out in certain hilly areas)

The first severe thunderstorm watch for IL never did produce any severe weather. I believe the later one did, but I’m not sure of the details on it. Most of the really bad weather was down in Mississippi where at least 7 people lost their lives and tons of damage was reported. It really puts stuff into perspective when on one hand you enjoy chasing and watching these severe weather wonders of nature, but on the other hand you hate to see it destroy property and injure/kill people.

P.S. Would someone tell Chad that he was the only one seeing the frogs! Thanks!

Special thanks to:
John Jensen for providing us with nowcasting via the cell phone. I’d also like to thank Chad and Joe for going out of their way to pick me up for this chase. When we bag one this year, the steak is on me!