Chase LogI was somewhat drooling over the late November moderate risk setup over southern Indiana through Kentucky. Unfortunately, I was scheduled to work a half day which would ruin any chasing plans. What made matters worse was the expectation of 1-3 inches of snow here in the afternoon and evening. I grudgingly went into work at 8:00am and glanced at the weather setup just wishing I could chase. There was a nice dry punch of air coming in that was clearing things out very quickly to make way for sunshine in the target area.

Around 9:00am CST, one of my co-workers showed up who I thought would be taking the day off. I thought to myself (and eventually out loud), why do we need 3 techs here the day before Thanksgiving? I spoke with my boss who quickly agreed and told me to go home. (yay!) I left at 9:30am CST and boogied home to gather the chase gear. I knew winter weather was quickly moving in, but I figured why waste the opportunity to chase one more time this year.

I departed Champaign at 10:00am CST and headed east on I-74. I encountered moderate rain showers all the way into Indiana. At 11:30am CST, I received a text message alerting me of a tornado watch covering parts of southeastern IL, southwestern IN, western KY, and western TN. (woo hoo!) I reached Indianapolis around 12:00pm CST and decided to head south on I-65. As I made my way further south into southern Indiana, I received another alert of a new tornado watch covering southern IN, central KY, and southwestern OH. (double woo hoo!)

As I approached Louisville, I noticed that I was getting low on fuel. (thanks to the indicator light on the dash that said ‘low fuel’) Unfortunately, someone had blown a tire or something which caused traffic on the bridge crossing the Ohio River to come to a halt. We finally got moving again and I quickly made my way to the first exit to fill up. 9.5 gallons later, I was back on the highway in search of storms. I noticed it was much warmer at this point and the sun was peaking through.

I continued my way on I-65 and was getting quite hungry. I pulled off at a McD’s in Lebanon Junction, KY to grab a bite and check some data. Radar wasn’t looking very good as all I saw was a line of junk heading my way. I did notice a tornado warned cell up in south central Indiana, but there was nothing close to me at this point. I did get a nice downpour for a few minutes while I was sitting there, but didn’t see anything even close to severe. After the shower passed, I noticed a nice double rainbow out the window. I snapped a few still shots of it with the 35mm, but didn’t bother shooting any video.

From what I had gathered from the data, things were not looking very good at this point. I decided to call it a chase at this point and make my way home. Conditions at home had unfortunately deteriorated since I was last there. I was getting reports of very slick conditions due to rain changing over to snow which obviously had me quite concerned. I headed back up I-65 through Louisville and then on to Indianapolis. I ran through some patches of rain on the way north, but did not see any winter weather. However, I did notice it getting much colder outside as the windows were starting to fog up.

Once I started heading west out of Indy, things started to get interesting. I hit some patches of rain that quickly changed over to snow. I decreased my speed as to not take any chances with spinning out of control. At one point I saw the guy in front of me swerve just a tad. Just after I saw that, I realized that he had hit an icy spot in the road. Luckily I slowed down even further so when I hit the icy spot, I had no problems at all. I made a stop at Crawsfordsville in hope of filling up the gas tank, but as I approached the stations they were all without power. I continued my journey westward on I-74 back into Illinois. I stopped in Danville, IL and filled up the gas tank and about froze my tail off. (would someone remind me again why I took my gloves out of the car??)

I proceeded slowly towards Champaign and noticed numerous vehicles in the ditch and median. (most seemed deserted) I finally made it home around 9:00pm CST and quickly got inside to warm up.

Chase Summary:
My first chase to Kentucky didn’t go so well, but it was fun to get one more chase in this year. November chases have not gone well for me, but had I not gone there would have been a major outbreak. While this chase didn’t turn out the way I wanted, I definitely have alot to be thankful for this year in the way of my chasing adventures. Hopefully I will get even more chances in 2005.

Chase LogA moderate risk in July here in Illinois?? That’s what I awoke to on Tuesday morning. The models were showing some decent wind shear across parts of Illinois today, not to mention the insane amount of instability and moisture in the air. I was thinking it would be a good day for severe weather mainly because my weather server at home took a crap on me and decided it didn’t want to operate today, so that meant no weather updates to my cell phone. When I got to work, I loaded up all my weather applications and monitored the situation closely. I noticed one lone supercell firing up in northwest Illinois late Tuesday morning that made me wonder if things were going up too soon. Several tornado warnings were going out shortly after 12:30pm, this thing was churning! At this rate I would never have a chance to chase. I normally get off at 4:30, but I pulled a few strings and managed to get off at 1:30. I went home and loaded up the gear, then headed out to chase this thing.

I headed west on I-74 just after 2:00pm, hoping to get to Bloomington and then go north from there. As I got closer to Bloomington, I was hearing reports on the scanner of tornadoes in Woodford county. I got off at the Carlock exit and as I made it to the top of the off ramp, I saw something to my north that caught my eye. There appeared to be a tornado about 10 miles to my north, but the contrast was so low that at the time I could not confirm that it was indeed a tornado. (video analysis confirmed a tornado) I headed west and then north of Carlock, trying to get closer without driving into anything I would later regret. As I headed north, I had to check the map several times to make sure I wasn’t in Missouri. Most of central Illinois is fairly decent for chasing, but I managed to find one of the most tree covered, hilly parts of the area. (not to mention the freaking corn fields!) Anywho, I made way to US 24 and headed east to El Paso (IL, not TX) and then headed south on SR 251.

I continued south till I reached Kappa, IL and then headed west on CR 600N. At 3:40pm, I started receiving some small hail about 2.5 miles west of Kappa. As in previous hail encounters, I thought it’d be wise to get off the road and wait out the storm. I found a farmer’s driveway and parked next to a tree. (which provided no hail protection since I was on the wrong side of the tree) As I sat there, the hail continued getting bigger which had me worried a bit. Once it was over, I jumped out and grabbed a few of the bigger chunks. The pieces I measure were 1.75″, but they had melted a bit by the time I got to them. (back in Kappa, there was 2.75″ baseball hail reported!) The guy whose driveway I was in came out after the storm and talked with me for a few minutes. He said that the hail took out one of his north windows of his house. He also mentioned that he saw the tornado earlier from his house, which made me very jealous.

After talking with him for a little while longer, I decided to follow the storm back home. I never could quite catch up with it as I made my way back to the southeast. I did see some nice mammatus on the way back as well as two semis that had been blown over on I-74 near Mansfield. I got home around 5:00pm and enjoyed the mammatus directly over Champaign.

Final thoughts:
Never thought I’d be seeing a decent chase here in Illinois during July, but today was definitely one of those days. It was very frustrating to have the stuff firing up so early in the day, but at least I was able to get off work early and go chase. NWS damage surveys revealed F4 damage near Roanoke, IL, which was just north of where I was. Luckily no one was killed from this event, so kudos to all the spotters/chasers out there for keeping an eye on the sky.