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wall cloud

June 19, 2009 – Chase in Eastern Illinois

A moderate risk and 10% chance of tornadoes across Central Illinois is a nice way to start off a Friday. A severe thunderstorm watch was pasted across northern and central IL at 2:30pm. Around 3:00pm, several storms were firing up along intersecting outflow boundaries in DeWitt and Logan counties. The cell that I had my eye on was in DeWitt county which was severe warned at 3:41pm. Thanks to my lovely AT&T piece of crap data connection not working yet again, I was limited to the radar on my phone.

I departed Champaign at 4:00pm and headed west on RT 10. I pulled off just north of Seymour (CR 1675N / 0.25 miles west of CR 200E) to observe a nice looking wall cloud. It had lots of vertical motion, but it couldn’t get its act together and quickly died out. A severe thunderstorm was issued for this cell at 4:21pm. I decided to head south a few miles and then follow the storm east across Champaign county. At 5:07pm, I pulled off at the Unity East Elementary School parking lot in Philo and observed another wall cloud. I would estimate the winds were around 40mph as the storm moved past me.

May 13, 2009 – Wall cloud in Western Illinois

When the SPC Day 3 outlook pegs an area with a moderate risk, it’s usually a decent indicator that there’s going to be some nasty storms. The Day 1 outlook for May 13th had most of Illinois in the moderate risk, though it was later trimmed back to include just the western and southern parts of the state. I somehow managed to get the afternoon off from work, so I was anxious to get out there and see some action. I spent most of the morning trying to get my new AT&T data card to work correctly. I finally had to do a complete uninstall of all software / drivers related to the card and then it reinstalled correctly. I also discovered that the county was changing their public safety frequencies and my scanner needed some updating to track the changes. (probably not the wisest move to change such a crucial system on a severe weather day)

Anywho, I loaded up all the gear and headed west on I-72 from Champaign around 1:30pm. Not much was going on in the weather during the trip west, so I decided to stop in Jacksonville for a pitstop / snacks. I reassessed the situation while sitting at Lake Jacksonville watching the wind blow. (real exciting!) Looking at Spotter Network, most of the chasers were crossing over into Missouri which was not on my agenda. There are too many hills and trees for my taste, so I figured I’d stick to Illinois. I debated whether the storms that were firing up in Missouri would make it to Illinois before it was too dark. I almost called it a bust and headed back home, but figured I’d gone through the hassle of taking half a day off work so I should probably stick it out for a few more hours.

May 30, 2008 – Central IL chase

I haven’t chased since 2006 so I was anxious to get back out there sometime this year. If anything it was a good time to test out the new gear that I have acquired since the last time I chased. The SPC had a moderate risk over central IL by noon mentioning supercells and bow echos. I became really busy at work and didn’t have time to look at much data during the afternoon. At 2pm, a Tornado Watch was issued for eastern MO, central IL, and western IN. I managed to finish up work a little earlier that normal and headed home to grab the gear. I had a little trouble with the GPS software, but finally got it working. I hit the road around 3:30pm and headed west on Route 10.

For some reason, I decided to get off RT 10 just east of Seymour and went south. I didn’t really have a target area at this point, so I was just trying to head west and south a bit. Radar was showing a developing cell with a possible hook over Cass / Mason counties. I wasn’t seeing any rotation on radar at the time, but I was very interested in this cell since it was the closest one to me. I zigzagged my way west and stopped at the I-72 on-ramp just west of Cisco to decide what to do next. My choices were either to go after the cell to my northwest or hit I-72 and intercept a tornado warned cell in western IL. My decision was then made for me as a tornado warning was issued for the closer cell in Cass / Menard / Scott counties.