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indiana

May 7, 2010 – Chase to Northeast Indiana

It’s rare for me to have a day off during the week, so I jumped at the opportunity to chase today. A moderate risk of severe weather in Indiana and Ohio sounded pretty enticing to me. I’ve never chased in that area before, but according to other chasers the terrain didn’t sound too bad.

After topping off the gas tank and washing the car, I left Champaign at 10:00am (CDT) and went east on I-74. I made my way north of Indianapolis and stopped in Wabash, IN around 2:15pm (EDT). I grabbed some lunch and attempted to download some weather data. Apparently that area is a dead zone as I was just barely getting a signal on my Verizon data card even with an external antenna. I was getting better results on my AT&T iPhone, but still no 3G speeds. I also realized I didn’t seem to have the power cable to my data card, so I packed the computer back up and just used the phone for data.

June 5, 2005 – Chase to Northwest Indiana

I’m not even sure what day it is, but I did manage to chase yet again today after Saturday’s 1,200 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.