Chase LogNothing like waking up to a moderate risk in mid June. The tornado threat was forecast further north and west, but a widespread damaging wind event looked very probably for central IL. I monitored the setup throughout the day and had two target areas in mind. One would take me to west central IL and the other would take me southwest of Springfield. I would make that decision after work and base it on present satellite/radar conditions.

I left work at 3:00pm and I still wasn’t quite sure which way to head. I finally decided to head west and go after the cell that was all by itself. I departed Champaign around 3:30pm after topping off the gas tank at $2.34/gallon. I headed northwest on I-74 and then jogged west on RT 136. Several severe thunderstorm warnings were issued on the cell that I was going after, but on radar it appeared to be dying. I was almost there, so I decided to stick with it and see what happens.

As I approached Havana, IL. around 5:00pm, there appeared to be a possible wall cloud to my west. Now my decision was whether or not to cross the lovely Illinois river. The road network was not the greatest in this area, so I decided to stay on the east side of the river. (in hindsight that wasn’t a good idea) I went north/east/north on CR 20 which somewhat paralleled the river. It continued to look crappy on radar, but I failed to notice the 3.00″ hail indicator. (doh!) I had the scanner on and heard a report of golfball sized hail in Lewistown. (which was right over the river!) I stopped to snap a few pictures of this cell, and then decided to abandon it and head south towards the main show.

I hopped on RT 97 and headed southeast towards the Springfield area. As I got just south of Petersburg, IL., the wrath of mother nature said hello to me. It started pouring very heavily and I started getting some small hail. I couldn’t see 10 feet in front of me, so I pulled off the side of the road to wait it out for a few minutes. After it let up a bit, I got back on the road and kept going on RT 97. When I entered Sangamon county, I encountered more hail. Radar was only indicating 1.25″ where I was, but further south it was showing 2.25″ hail. I couldn’t get an estimate on the size of the hail as it was raining so hard, but it was very loud. As soon as I hit Springfield, I dashed into a gas station to take shelter from the hail and to make a pitstop.

At this point I decided to just head back home as everything was going linear. I went through Springfield and then got on I-72 to head east. I tried to chase the line back to Champaign, but I just couldn’t catch up to it. As I passed through Decatur, I heard lots of damage reports on the ham repeater. There was a tornado warning issued for southern Piatt county, but it didn’t look like much on radar. The storms coming into Champaign appeared to be dying, though that’s par for the course in Champaign. I arrived back home around 8:30pm.

Chase Summary:
Well this was a promising yet disappointing chase today. I should have stuck with my Fulton county storm longer and crossed the river. Lack of updated radar probably cost me on this one as well as the road network/river. Oh well, you live and learn right?

Chase LogI wasn’t planning on chasing today, but a leftover squall line / bow echo made its way from Iowa into Illinois this afternoon. The NWS in Lincoln wasn’t too confident that it would stay severe given the shallow dewpoints at the 850mb level. Regardless, it was fun to watch it trigger numerous severe and even a few tornado warnings throughout the afternoon. I could see them weakening as they progressed eastward into Illinois, but still was willing to go out and watch them after work.

I went home at 4:00pm and gathered up the gear. I made a pitstop to fill up the gas tank at a whopping $2.39/gallon and then made my way south of town. I checked radar and saw a little cell firing up to my WSW, so figured I’d go wait for that one to come to me. I picked a spot at CR 400N / 550 E and waited for the little cell to come to me. I decided to get out the anemometer out of storage (aka my trunk) and see if it still worked. I stuck it on the roof and was instantly getting readings. As soon as I setup my tripod, it of course started raining. So I scrambled into the car and then realize I left the display of the anemometer laying on the trunk. So I go back out to get it and get soaked with the wind driven rain. Anywho, I got back in the car and shot a little video of the rain and wind. (wasn’t much else to shoot) The highest wind gust that I recorded was 37 mph, so nothing even close to severe in the area.

After the cell passed, I decided to call it a chase and head back home. I arrived back in Champaign around 6:15pm.

Chase Summary:
Didn’t see too much, but at least I got out there and piddled around. It was nice to get the anemometer out again and tinker with it. Hopefully next time I can record something a bit highter than 37mph.

Chase LogI’m not even sure what day it is, but I did manage to chase yet again today after Saturday’s 1200 mile marathon. After going to bed around 11:00am (yes, that says AM), I woke up around 1:20pm to the sounds of wind and rain hitting the roof. I loaded up radar and saw a nice looking cell up to the north of me. The next radar scan showed 1.25″ hail possible, so I knew it was growing rapidly. The NWS in Chicago issued a severe thunderstorm warning on it, so I couldn’t ignore it. I quickly gathered all my gear and stumbled to my car. (only 2 hours of sleep!) I made a gas stop to fill up the tank ($2.34/gal) and then headed north on I-57.

I got off at the Gilman exit and headed east on US 24 to follow the storms. At 2:24pm, a tornado warning went up for Iroquois county in IL as well as Benton/Newton counties in IN. I was picking up some traffic on the scanner of a confirmed touchdown south of Watseka. Data was spotty until I got into Indiana and visually the storm was not really visible. (too much rain) I continued into Indiana and then went north at Goodland, IN on SR 55. No matter how hard I tried, I could not keep up with the storms which had now gone linear. Data was showing some rotation on the velocity scan, but it was 20-25 miles east of me. I finally gave up and turned around south of Rensselaer, IN.

On the way back, I did notice a grain silo was damaged with debris thrown across the street in a field. I made my way back to I-57 and headed south to Champaign. I arrived back around 5:30pm.

Chase Summary:
Another frustrating chase day of 2005. I broke my cardinal rule of chasing to the east. Unless the storms are sitting still, do not chase to the east! *yawn* I need some sleep…

Chase LogFinally a weekend chase opportunity, only took until June to happen. My initial target was somewhere west of Des Moines, Iowa, preferrably in southwest Iowa. Friday night’s model run was showing really good ingredients in that area as well as in Kansas. However I wanted to target Iowa to avoid the massive chaser convergence that would be in Kansas. The SPC had a moderate risk posted for the same area so I knew I was at least thinking somewhat on the right track.

I got up at 6:00am on Saturday morning and prepared for the chase. After a stop at the ATM and then the gas station ($2.34/gal), I hit the road at 7:00am. I took I-74 west towards the great state of Iowa, checking data every once in awhile. When I checked the latest Day 1 outlook, I noticed it had been upgraded to a high risk. (yippeeee!) Thoughts of May 29, 2004 came to mind as I proceeded westward. As I was driving, I kept text messaging Skip Talbot to find out his location. Despite him leaving his home in Bolingbrook, IL much later than me, he ended up getting to Iowa before me. When I got to the Des Moines, IA area, I called him to find out where he was going to target. He informed me that the latest model runs were keeping everything further south into KS/MO and that he was heading to the KC area. At first I wasn’t sure about going that far, but I’d already gone this far so might as well keep going.

I hopped on I-35 from Des Moines and headed south towards the KC area. Having not had anything but a bag of potato skins and a gatorade, I was quickly getting hungry. Skip called me when we got into NW Missouri and said they were stopping for food at a Wendy’s in Bethany, MO. I met up with them shortly after and we enjoyed a very yummy meal. Data was very spotty but Skip managed to get online and get some radar updates. There appeared to be a few cells trying to get going in KS, so we plotted a course to St. Joesph, MO and would reevaluate the situation once we arrived. We left Bethany, MO around 3:25pm and headed south on I-35 and then headed west on US 36 to St. Joesph. We passed through and then stopped just over the border in Wathena, KS. I finally acquired a data signal and was just in time to pick up a tornado warning on the cell entering Brown county. (the county just west of us!) I relayed the info to Skip and we headed WNW on US 36 towards Brown County.

As we headed west on US 36, I was hearing reports on the scanner of a confirmed tornado near Robinson, KS. As we neared, we were finally starting to see some of the base, but no tornado was visible. We pulled off the road just west of the Sagebrush Rd. at 4:35pm. There was alot of rotation in the clouds above us, but there was no tornado. I got out and took some stills and setup the tripod for video. No sooner did I get the tripod ready and it started raining pretty good. (I never seem to bring my jacket on these chases) Another chaser pulled up across the road from us and asked if we’d seen the tornado. I frustratingly yelled back “NO!” to him as I dashed back in the car. We decided to follow the storm to see if it might redevelop, so we headed east and then zigzagged north on SR 7. We stopped near Iowa Point, KS around 5:05pm and observed the storm from the backside as it hurried away from us. The road network here really sucked and there was the task of crossing the Missouri River.

Skip was the only one with a working data connection, and he was having a hard time keeping the connection. We decided to head north on SR 7 into Nebraska and then head east over the Missouri river. We passed through an Indian Reservation with signs that said ‘Flood Area Ahead’. (not exactly what you want to see when it’s pouring down rain!) We headed east on US 159 and then went north on SR 111. We pulled off in someone’s driveway out in the country to stop and check data again. While we were sitting there, we encountered a brief period of small hail. (probably a tad bigger than pea sized) We were trying to decide which way to go from here as everything was really going linear at this point. There appeared to be some individual cells popping up to our NW in Nebraska, so we decided to go north and see what we could find. We continued on SR 111 and then jumped on I-29 to head northwest.

We crossed the border into Iowa and briefly stopped south of Sidney, IA to observe our dying storm. (very pretty looking though) We both nearly lost the front end’s of our cars from a huge hole in the road. Anywho, we proceeded north and stopped in Sidney, IA to get gas and find some data. The roads were not labeled very well, so we ended up going down the wrong way of a one way street. I nearly had to jump the curb to avoid colliding with a truck. Cell data was non-existant, so we started roaming the town for open WiFi spots. We split up and eventually Skip found a nice high speed wireless connection in front of someone’s house. The cell we were watching had split, and the left-mover looked pretty decent so we decided to go after it. We headed back south and then headed west on SR 2 towards Nebraska. Skip checked data along the way and the cell appeared to be weakening.

At this point, we were calling it a chase and decided to stop in Nebraska City, NE for some much needed food. We were thinking of KFC, but it was not being visibly spotted despite it being on our maps. We finally decided on Pizza Hut since pizza is always a good meal to end a chase on. As we were eating, I glanced over to one of the TV’s and it had the weather channel. They were showing the normal ‘local on the 8′s’ segment, and then all of a sudden they switched to amazing video from a tornado in Brown County, KS! Our jaws dropped and it almost ruined our appetite. We had missed this awesome tornado by about 15 minutes. We just shook our heads and finished our meal. As we walked out of the Pizza Hut, we were treated to an awesome display of mammatus clouds. (must be my year for mammatus!) We drove outside of town and shot some pictures as the sunset really enhanced the mammatus clouds.

We were anxious to get back to Illinois because there was a good chance of severe weather there on Sunday. We poked our destinations into Street Atlas and the quickest route for both of us appeared to be back through Iowa on I-80. We made our way back north on I-29 and then hopped east on I-80 around Omaha, NE. I received a call from Mike Cox in Des Moines asking me to stop by on my way back home. I said my goodbyes to Skip and Bob on the ham rig as they continued on past Des Moines. I arrived around 11:30pm in Des Moines where I met up with Mike Cox. He is a paramedic for Fraser Medical Services, so I got the whole tour of the facility. After finally figuring out the soda machine, he showed me some video of the tornado I had missed earlier in the day. Once again, it made me sick to think we’d gone all that way and missed the spiffy tornado by 15 minutes.

It was getting late and Mike needed to get ready for the next day of work and I needed to get back to Illinois. I departed Des Moines around 12:15am and continued east on I-80. I made a gas pitstop in Williamsburg, IA around 1:30am and then kept on going east. I made my way into IL around 4:00am and was getting very tired. I stopped several times along the way to rest my eyes for a bit and to get more caffine. I continued ESE on I-74 and stopped off NW of Peoria to take a couple pics of the sunrise. When I got to Peoria, I noticed some cells trying to do something south of me. I briefly thought about chasing them, but radar wasn’t showing much promise with them. I finally made it back to Champaign around 7:45am Sunday morning. The threat for storms had shifted more to the east, so I was going to take a well deserved nap and figure out things later.

Chase Summary:
Well this was a fun yet frustrating chase for all involved. It was nice having Skip and Bob out there with me, more fun that way! While we missed the nifty tornado in Brown county, it was still a decent trip. The mammatus at sunset were a well earned treat for us. Thanks again to Skip and Bob for tagging along as well as Mike for the hospitality and can of Mountain Dew. At least this trip to Kansas I didn’t get stuck in the mud, so I have to mark that as an accomplishment.

Chase LogBehold Friday the 13th, the day everyone freaks out about each time it rolls around. Superstitions, bad luck, and severe weather all come with the territory. (huh? did he just say severe weather??) It looked like a possibility in the morning, however, crap clouds (official technical term) were covering most of the state. The eastern part started clearing out so I kept some hope of seeing some storms. The NWS out of Lincoln (ILX) said they expected storms to fire up sometime after 3:00pm. However, at 12:50pm the SPC issued a severe thunderstorm watch for eastern Illinois and Indiana with storms firing up to the east of me. (drats!)

I continued monitoring the weather throughout the afternoon, hoping that the early morning cloud cover wouldn’t bite us yet again. Around 4:00pm I noticed 2 small cells popping up around Macoupin county. I thought maybe this would be the start of the main show, and I was right. As I watched each radar scan, the cells were getting stronger. Doppler radar was indicating hail up to 1″, so I knew that I had to take a chance at this. Around 5:15pm, I gathered the gear and loaded up the car. My plan was to go south and intercept the northern storm as it entered the southern part of the county.

I departed at 5:30pm and made a quick stop to fill up the gas tank. (2.18/gal) I hopped on I-57 and headed south to intercept the cell. I took the 229 exit (Monticello Road) and went about a mile east and then south. I pulled off just west of CR 900E on CR 900N to take some pictures. The weather radio went off at this time with a severe thunderstorm warning for southern Champaign county. (right where I am!) There was a nifty little shelf cloud to my south as well as some dirt being propelled across the ground.

After taking a few minutes of video and stills, it started to rain so I retreated to the car. Instead of punching south through the heart of the storm, I decided to head east on CR 900N to stay ahead of it. A few minutes later, I hit the dust and heavy rain head on. Visibility was almost nil and winds were pretty decent out of the south-southwest. Shortly after this, I heard some small hail pelting the car. The winds now seemed to shift from the south to the west-northwest. I entered Philo around 6:10pm and the hail got a little bigger. (estimating 1/2″ to 1″) I glanced down at the radar and chuckled as I noticed I was in the purple ‘core’ of the storm.

I continued east on CR 900N attempting to stay with the storm. I stopped south of Sidney to take a few pictures of a nice hail shaft to my northeast. I turned north on RT.49 in an attempt to catch up with the storm, but I ran into a closed road on the north side of Homer. I didn’t see any quick detours, so I decided to give up on this cell. On the way back, I encountered a decent sized tree limb completely blocking the roadway. (CR 1050N / 2500E) I took a few quick pics before I noticed a big backhoe coming down the road behind me. I quickly got out of his way and continued south on CR 2500E. I stopped briefly again to take a few pics of a very nifty rainbow.

At this point things were dying out and all moving into Indiana. I got on the radio and managed to get ahold of Andrew Pritchard (KC9HNB). He was southwest of Sidney just watching the storms roll out. I met up with him around 7:00pm @ CR 900N/1900E. We could see the clouds from the storms to our south and then I noticed a small patch of mammatus clouds. We had numerous visitors drive by and ask us if we saw the double rainbow. That seemed to be the big event that both Andrew and I missed as we only saw the one rainbow. We then had a car load of girls stop and ask us if we were “storm watchers”. The driver also mentioned she had taken a picture on her cell phone of the double rainbow and she was pretty excited about that.

Anywho, we sat there until after sunset watching more mammatus clouds become visible. I’ve never seen such a display like this before, it was truely amazing. (and in our own backyard!!) I couldn’t stop taking pictures, I wanted to get all of the colors that we were seeing. Finally it was getting too dark and all the pretty mammatus went away. Another chaser, Dave Bellmore (KC9GIW), arrived and we proceeded to poke fun because he missed the storms. I also enjoyed watching him get attacked by giant flying bugs as I took refuge inside my car. The bugs were really starting to come out in full force, so we decided to call it a night. Andrew and Dave headed back to Sidney while I headed back to Champaign. I arrived back around 9:15pm.

Chase Summary:
I almost thought I wasn’t going to get to chase today, but mother nature finally prevailed and put on a decent show here in Champaign county. Hopefully this won’t be the main event of the season as there’s still along way to go. Thanks to Andrew Pritchard and Dave Bellmore for the chaser convergence.

Chase LogI wasn’t really planning on chasing today, but the SPC teased me with the first morning Day 1 and the moderate risk that it plotted. The next 2 outlooks ended up moving the threat further east and south, but I wasn’t giving up hope yet. They issued a mesoscale discussion for eastern IL and western/central Indiana stating a possible watch was in the works. Satellite showed a nice clear slot pushing into IL and the upper level low was heading this way. Luckily things at work were going real slow, so I was able to sneak out early and prepare for a possible chase. The first severe cells were down in Perry/Washington county and were hauling it to the northeast. My plan was to head south and then jog east/south to intercept them.

I departed a little after 2:00pm and stopped to top off the gas tank. ($2.29/gal) I headed south on I-57 until I reached Mattoon. I decided to head east on Rt 16 till I got to Charleston. (go EIU!) After struggling through traffic, I made my way out of town a few miles. I heard a broken transmission on the scanner reporting a tornado on the ground in Macon county. I quickly pulled off the road and called my pal Mike Cox for an update. He said it looked like junk on radar, but said the warning stated there was a confirmed tornado on the ground. I decided to get back online and check this for myself. The stuff I was originally going for south of me seemed to be moving at a pretty good clip. I said the heck with it and decided to head back west and then north.

Once back on I-57, I checked radar again and noticed the stuff in Macon county was dying out but some new cells were popping up right north of me. When I intercepted them, they were nothing but heavy rain. Nothing else was looking worth a hoot in the area, so I decided to call it a chase. I headed back home and arrived back in Champaign around 4:45pm.

Chase Summary:
Well I didn’t see much out there, but it was better than sitting at home. Thanks to Mike Cox, Andrew Pritchard, and Skip Talbot for keeping tabs on me out there. Hopefully May will bring some better stuff our way.

Chase LogAh, April 20th, a very popular chase day for many. Last year, I intercepted a tornado south of Kankakee on April 20th. While the setup today wasn’t the same, I still wasn’t taking any chances. The winds were lacking in both shear and speed, but we had decent instability which I was hoping would pop something severe. I watched storms fire up in the afternoon in western IL with several going severe mainly due to hail. My plan was to stay close to home and chase whatever came to me. After leaving work around 4:00pm, I saw a couple of cells firing up west and southwest of town. On the way home, I filled up the gas tank at a lovely $2.32/gal.

I departed Champaign at 5:00pm and headed north of town to attempt an intercept of the cell coming in from the west. I made my way north of town and stopped at CR 2550N / 800E (6 miles west of Thomasboro, IL) as the rains began to pound me. While I was sitting there, I encountered some pea sized hail. I glanced at the radar and I was clearly in the core of this little cell. I sat there for about 10 minutes and then proceeded to head back south towards Champaign. As I went south through town on Mattis Avenue, it was raining like a June storm. The road was almost like a lake and all the cars were more like boats than cars.

I finally made my way out of town and continued south on Rt 45. When I reached Pesotum, I decided to head east a ways to follow some scud junk and to get out of the heavy precip. I made a stop around 6:30pm at CR 1800E/200N to take a few pictures of this scud junk. I checked radar again and everything seemed to be moving out of the area, so I decided to head back home. On the way back, I headed west of town and took some shots of the sunset and some mammatus clouds. I also spotted a pickup truck who had run into a power pole and split the thing in half. (I had heard the call on the scanner) A sheriff had just pulled up, so I didn’t bother trying to take any pics. I headed back home and arrived around 7:40pm.

Chase Summary:
For not having any severe warnings, this wasn’t too shabby. I’m not sure I have ever seen it rain this heavy in April as it felt more like a June storm. Hopefully we’ll get some better storms later in the month.

Chase LogThere’s nothing like waking up to the entire state of Illinois draped under a moderate risk! At first I thought it was an early April Fools joke by the fine folks at the SPC, but after further review I noticed there was indeed a chance of some severe weather. Unfortunately I was stuck at work till 4pm, so going after the prime target of north central Illinois or anything in Iowa was definitely out of the question.

During the afternoon, storms started firing up in western Illinois. Several of them went severe and then finally one went tornadic near the Peoria area. I sat there at work drooling at the radar screen and was hoping that someone was chasing it. Right before I left work, I tried to come up with a target area. I had planned on heading up towards Bloomington, but with the storms moving at 65mph I had to readjust my plans.

I departed work at 4:00pm and headed home to load up the gear. I started powering up all the gear and of course I blow the fuse to my power inverter. (I hadn’t tested it since wiring it direct to the battery) When swearing at the fuse box didn’t fix it, I swapped out the fuse and we were back in business. By this time I had decided to head a bit south rather than attempt catching the insanely fast moving storms to the north.

After topping off the gas tank at a lovely $2.35/gallon, I headed south through town and then west out into the country. I ended up in Piatt county just southeast of Monticello, IL. (around 5:30pm CST) I found a great flat area at 1100N/1400E and pulled off the road to begin watching this cell to my SSW. After just a minute or two of sitting there, a severe thunderstorm warning was issued for it. (yippeee!) I grabbed the cameras and hopped out of the car. The winds were howling and unfortunately I didn’t have time to throw the anemometer on the roof. I setup the tripod for the camcorder and held on to it while I shot some stills with the other camera. I heard some thunder and it started to rain, so I quickly grabbed the gear and retreated to the car.

It started pouring pretty good and then I heard some hail slap the car. Radar wasn’t indicating much in the way of hail, so I didn’t worry about it pelting the car. (it was only pea sized hail anyways!) The storm quickly passed and I jumped out of the car to take a few more pictures before it scooted out of the county. I wasn’t seeing much of anything forming back to my southwest, so I decided to make my way back home and call it a chase. More storms fired up a few hours later, but nothing worth going out again.

Chase Summary:
Well this wasn’t too shabby for the first chase of the year. I wish I could have gone to Iowa or northern Illinois, but given the circumstances this was pretty nifty too. It was a good test run for all the gear and it will give me a few more ideas for future chases. I’m definitely happy that spring is here and can’t wait to go on the next chase!